“And yet by heaven I think my love as rare / as any that she belie with false compare”

“My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;Coral is far more red than her lips' red;If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,But no such roses see I in her cheeks;And in some perfumes is there more delightThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to hear her speak, yet well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing sound;I grant I never saw a goddess go;My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.”

“I think love and hate intertwine far too much for humanity's own good, yet we choose to compare them like vinegar and water.”

“Why do I doubt her? Perhaps she is just very sensitive, and hypersensitive people are false when others doubt them; they waver. And one thinks them insincere. Yet I want to believe her. At the same time it does not seem so very important that she should love me. It is not her role. I am so filled with my love of her. And at the same time I feel that I am dying. Our love would be death. The embrace of imaginings.”

“I've yet to read a love story that compares with mine.”

“My whole life long I learn'd to love,This hour my utmost art I prove.And speak my passion—— heaven or hell?She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well!”