Of Romantic Quotes

#1. A cynic should never marry an idealist. For the cynic, marriage represents the welcome end of romantic life, with all its agony and ecstasy. But for the idealist, it is only the beginning.

Julie Burchill

#2. The music that inspires the souls of lovers exists within themselves and the private universe they occupy. They share it with each other; they do not share it with the tribe or with society. The courage to hear that music and to honor it is one of the prerequisites of romantic love.

Nathaniel Branden

#3. The more intelligent and competent a woman is in her adult life, the less likely she is to have received an adequate amount of romantic attention in adolescence.

Susan Jacoby

#4. The paradox of romantic love
that what one possesses, one can no longer desire
was at work.

Elizabeth Bowen

#5. Social pressure is the fascism of the democracies. Fascism is the democracy of the ruthless. Social engineering is the opiate of romantic intellectuals.

Michael D. O'Brien

#6. All too often, "falling in love" with the fantasy of romantic love becomes the aphrodisiac, rather than learning to love the real person and in real conditions of existence.

Chrys Ingraham

#7. As he leans over to kiss me good night, I do not regret having graduated from the amorous sprints of our youths. Marriage is a long-distance course, and reading aloud is a kind of romantic Gatorade formulated to invigorate the occasionally exhausted racers.

Anne Fadiman

#8. I think people try to jam a lot of artificial plot devices into a lot of romantic comedies, and they don't treat it with the respect I believe it deserves.

Nicholas Stoller

#9. Now that I look back on it, having retired from being a reporter, it was kind of romantic. It was a wonderful way to live one's life, just as I imagined it would be when I was 6 or 7.

Charles Kuralt

#10. A cold wind swept across the patio, causing me to shiver. Noah shrugged off his black leather jacket and tossed it around my shoulders. "How are you going to tutor me if you get fucking pneumonia?" I cocked an eyebrow. What an odd combination of romantic gesture and horribly crude wording.

Katie McGarry

#11. The purpose of romantic relationships is to encourage you to grow spiritually.

Gary Zukav

#12. But I want to be your only source of romantic situations from this point forward.

Penny Reid

#13. Unlike typical romantic comedies, Definitely Maybe is not formulaic or predictable and it spans a decade while being set against a political background. Also, the audience doesn't know who ends up with who until the very end, which makes it a sort of "romantic mystery comedy".

Isla Fisher

#14. PIerre tried to work up a stormy heart of romantic loss about breaking up with Rebecca. It gave him license to drink and brood with hard eyes, which he found interesting.

Tom Drury

#15. It's probably hard to feel any sort of Romantic spiritual connection to nature when you have to make your living from it.

David Foster Wallace

#16. What is damage but forcing yourself, memories of yourself, onto someone else? Coloring someone else's body. In reality, it's sort of romantic. It's why we love to hurt each other.

E.J. Koh

#17. I am a big fan of the old Howard Hawks films from the 30s and 40s, I was a big Hepburn and Tracey fan for a while and Woody Allen films that are a very different kind of romantic comedy.

Edward Burns

#18. There can be no doubt that our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination. Traditionally, such discrimination was rationalized by an attitude of "romantic paternalism" which, in practical effect, put women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage.

William J. Brennan

#19. If only Sam could have stayed just like the Dog, she thought. A comforting friend without the complication of romantic interest.There had to be something she could do to completely discourage him, short of throwing up, or making herself totally unattractive.
"I'm thirty-five," she said at last.

Garth Nix

#20. Because of school policy I don't think it wise to risk having any sort of romantic relationship, Alicia.

Cherry Kay

#21. I'm not a big fan of romantic comedies, believe it or not.

Kate Hudson

#22. ADMIRABLY BOLD. There's something grand about the film's sincerity and the intensity of its emotions and something fresh and bold about the way director Gray uses the conventions of romantic melodrama.

A.O. Scott

#23. It was kind of romantic, especially since you weren't lying dead anywhere.

J. Lynn

#24. Husbands and wives need to return regularly to the kinds of romantic activities that drew them together in the first place.

James C. Dobson

#25. My books do have a sort of romantic community at the end - people coming together. But on a more basic level, I always see them as being about power, in the same way that Harry Potter books are pitched to a population of young people who really have no power.

Chuck Palahniuk

#26. When I was a kid, I knew the black and white version of 'Jane Eyre,' and I guess I became interested in the idea of romantic love - of unrequited love and the tragedies of that; of what are the important things in life; what should one value over other materials.

Cary Fukunaga

#27. So far as we can ascertain, in primitive cultures the idea of romantic love did not exist at all.

Nathaniel Branden

#28. You've written plenty of romantic tales," he said, taking the book from her hands and gently closing it. "Didn't you know I would come?

Kelly O'Connor McNees

#29. There are so many people I know who could be the greatest film-maker but who will never get the chance to make a movie; it's all about what somebody is going to make back. There are not a lot of romantic ideas about making movies anymore.

Alexandra Cassavetes

#30. I'm sure a handful of people can relate to that experience of having some kind of romantic encounter - the event of love - which they just can't shake. They take it with them, despite their own desire, and it continually haunts them, and there's nothing to be done about it. That's a true rarity.

John Maus

#31. "I don't know; Killers are sort of romantic. Imagine your dying with his hands around his throat. He'd strangle the life out of you, and the last thing you would see would be his face."

L.J.Smith

#32. So many writers make dope glamorous; a form of romantic transgression, or world-weariness, or poetic sensitivity, or hipness. Mainly it's the stuff of ritualistic communion among inarticulate bores.

Leonard Michaels

#33. Anonymity crowned him as if t'were the halo of romantic glory.

Emmuska Orczy

#34. The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#35. The concept of romantic love affords a means of emotional manipulation which the male is free to exploit, since love is the only circumstance in which the female is (ideologically) pardoned for sexual activity.

Kate Millett

#36. This seems like some type of romantic mood lighting." I turn to him. "And I can tell you right now that you're not getting sex tonight."
He laughs and puts his hand on my shoulder. "Tonight? So you'd consider it some other night? Okay. That works for me.

Allie Everhart

#37. [From Flowering Judas]
She is, her comrades tell her, full of romantic error, for what she defines as cynicism in them is merely 'a developed sense of reality'.

Katherine Anne Porter

#38. Romantic ideas about the heart fly in the face of known fact, but that doesn't matter and never has. People many thousands of years ago knew that the heart is basically a blood pump, but that didn't keep them from also believing it was the seat of romantic love (and all other strong emotion).

George Fetherling

#39. Far from poisoning the mind, pornography shows the deepest truth about sexuality, stripped of romantic veneer.

Camille Paglia

#40. In the Dodge City of romantic love, crowded with betrayal, abandonment and rejection, it was better to fire first than to take the risk of being gunned down.

Edward St. Aubyn

#41. In France, you have 900 years of romantic love going back to the troubadours and minstrels that wrote stories of Lancelot and Guinevere. You have gallantry at the highest level.

Marilyn Yalom

#42. Rather would I have the love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father's curse, mother's moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks.

Emma Goldman

#43. The Germany I was enthused with was more old fashioned and kind of romantic. I just got there, and the next thing you know, I had this huge gilded album. It was kind of an amazing experience because I didn't intend it to be that way.

Rufus Wainwright

#44. The main characteristics of romantic love are craving: an intense craving to be with a particular person, not just sexually, but emotionally.

Helen Fisher

#45. I feel like I've done a bunch of period stuff and then a bunch of romantic comedies.

Kate Beckinsale

#46. The concept of romantic love as a widely accepted cultural value and as the ideal basis of marriage was a product of the nineteenth century.

Nathaniel Branden

#47. Science is like a love affair with nature; an elusive, tantalising mistress. It has all the turbulence, twists and turns of romantic love, but that's part of the game.

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

#48. You know, I had a lot of romantic notions about the jungle and this kind of finished that

David Grann

#49. I looked upon myself, in a sort of romantic and silly way, as like a laboratory.

Keith Richards

#50. I had a lot of romantic notions about what it would mean to cross Asia by foot.

Rory Stewart

#51. It is a distortion of the notion of romantic love to want to see obedience as the quintessential expression of respect.

Bell Hooks

#52. I came at last to a recognition of myself as, in part, a Tom Sawyer who wanted everything done according to the rules of romantic fiction, and complicated simple solutions with his absurd adolescent, book-born nonsense.

Robertson Davies

#53. The ecstatic insanity of romantic pursuit can be so enhanced by music that entire romantic conquests, victories and ruinous, crushing defeats can be tied to songs to such a degree that it's almost unbearable to listen to them again, as they bring back the memories so vividly.

Henry Rollins

#54. It's very difficult to have any kind of romantic feelings for a movie where you know exactly what's going to happen in the first five minutes.

Joe Swanberg

#55. There were two sides to David Lean: on the one side, he was kind of a rather stiff, disciplined Englishman. And then he had this kind of romantic side to him. I think being true to both sides of your nature is important.

John Boorman

#56. It is an absurd expression of romantic hope.

Michael Crichton

#57. A political philosophy (often called "political science" by practitioners who are not averse from verbal trickery) must deal with contemporary realities. If it does not, if it is charged with "ideals," it is merely a variety of romantic fiction, although it may not be recognized as such.

Revilo P. Oliver

#58. Sometimes he wondered if women were all lawyers, with an extensive code of Romantic Law that they kept stubbornly hidden from men.

Tessa Dare

#59. I love comedy, but it has to be hysterical and really amusing; I'm not really a big fan of romantic comedies, in fact I can't stand them. I'm really more of a fan of 'Team America' and 'Dodgeball.'

Rachel Hurd-Wood

#60. I gave her a CD, embossed with a heart. She probably expected it to be full of romantic music, but it contained nothing but jihadist chants.

Morten Storm

#61. Civilized beings regard the act of intercourse as the highest expression of romantic love. One need only observe the behavior of animals, however, to realize that the act is often a form of violence.

Fiona Paul

#62. I am a down-to-earth gentleman who will never, under any circumstances, resemble some sort of romantic hero like Mr Darcy.

Samantha Tonge

#63. Nancy fell in love with Viola at first sight of her. A coup de foudre, she said, more intense and overwhelming than any form of romantic love. Mother and daughter were each a world to the other, complete and unassailable.

Kate Atkinson

#64. The essence of romantic love is not the company of a lover but the pursuit.

Andrew Sullivan

#65. I do know that I like to play characters that are sometimes a little on the outside - that's because it feels kind of romantic and sexier to me. I really think they are the people that we learn lessons from.

Willem Dafoe

#66. In terms of romantic films, all-time romantic films, I really like 'Gone With the Wind.' And I realize I sound so cliched saying that, but there's something so absolutely romantic about it.

Freida Pinto

#67. It gives me immense pleasure to be trustworthy, faithful, and true - to have the kind of romantic bond that inspires this.

Kate Christensen

#68. As it is, I have a limited range as an actor - light comedy. I have never been a fan of romantic comedies, and yet that is what I have ended up mostly doing.

Hugh Grant

#69. Bingo Little, under the influence of romantic love or, perhaps just under the influence;..once said,'There is no love without perfect trust','Who told you that?' asked Bertie Wooster incredulously.

P.G. Wodehouse

#70. I believe our concept of romantic love is irrational, impossible to fulfill and the cause of many broken homes. No human being can maintain that rarefied atmosphere of 'true love'.

Rita Mae Brown

#71. The greatest stories ever told trace a path through the charred and exalted landscape of romantic love.

Elizabeth Lesser

#72. Valentine's Day itself, like most holidays in the modern era, has been heavily influenced by commercialism that focuses on the appeal of romantic fantasies.

Aberjhani

#73. Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another
physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.

Toni Morrison

#74. What I try to communicate is that there's a lot of crossover between that feeling of romantic heartbreak and this devastating feeling of knowing that we've punched a hole in the planet and it's spilling out oil and destroying the Gulf of Mexico and the ecosystem and seabirds and every creature.

Mirah

#75. The etiquette of romantic love is as elaborate as that surrounding the Emperor of China.

Mason Cooley

#76. I always wanted to be a teacher. I went to school to be a teacher. And I've always, you know, had this sort of romantic idea about it. But I'm worried about - I'm worried about education.

Tony Danza

#77. The thing you can't let go of is gravity. The reality of gravity in writing. If someone says something really mean in a sitcom, and the next wave isn't a reaction to the reality of that, you start losing relatability. In a lot of romantic comedies, they throw out the rules of life.

Michael Patrick King

#78. The majority of romantic comedy movies have nothing to do with love, but everything to do with infatuation.

Matt Smith

#79. You know, the man of my dreams might walk round the corner tomorrow. I'm older and wiser and I think I'd make a great girlfriend. I live in the realm of romantic possibility.

Stevie Nicks

#80. The first six months are what I call the La La Land phase. This is what a lot of romantic novels, songs, and movies are based upon. Enjoy the courtship, nights out, and fun. You will eventually come back to reality.

Pamela Cummins

#81. Was that some kind of romantic declaration, disguised as a filthy pirate sex offer?

Ruthie Knox

#82. I know nothing sadder than a hunchback in love or an ugly woman full of romantic ideals.

Emile Zola

#83. You do your work as a photographer and everything becomes past. Words are more like thoughts; the photographer's picture is always surrounded by a kind of romantic glamor - no matter what you do, and how you twist it.

Robert Frank

#84. Romance novels satisfy a very specific fantasy of romantic love that seems to be a powerful part of the female psyche.

Melissa Pritchard

#85. A cynic is a kind of romantic who has aged.

John Updike

#86. Black Jack. A common name for rogues and scoundrels in the eighteenth century. A staple of romantic fiction, the name conjured up charming highwaymen, dashing blades in plumed hats. The reality waled at my side.

Diana Gabaldon

#87. One of the keystones of romantic love - and also of the ecstatic religion practiced by mystics - is the powerful desire to become one with the beloved.

Diane Ackerman

#88. But that, after all, was the point of romantic folly. If it hadn't all gone horribly wrong, it wouldn't have been the real thing.

Edward St. Aubyn

#89. Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships by Sue Johnson,

Emily Nagoski

#90. The requirements of romantic love are difficult to satisfy in the back seat of a Dodge Dart.

Lisa Alther

#91. 95% of romantic stories end with partners committing to each other because everything after that is just the blank terrifying morass of adulthood. This monotonous grind in which the only real excitement in your life is occasionally finding a truly ripe avocado at the grocery store.

John Green

#92. I married him against all evidence. I married him believing that marriage doesn't work, that love dies, that passion fades, and in so doing I became the kind of romantic only a cynic is truly capable of being.

Nora Ephron

#93. It is difficult for some people to accept that love is a choice. This seems to run counter to the generally accepted theory of romantic love which expounds that love is inborn and as such requires no more than to accept it.

Leo Buscaglia

#94. I find L.A. kind of romantic, actually. As a movie junkie, it's a city that was built by the movies. There's something really weird and surreal about it that I find energizing.

Damien Chazelle

#95. You only need to look at Jane Austen to see how crossed wires can become a defining aspect of romantic life. Then again, if the course of true love ran more smoothly, it would have a terribly detrimental effect on our cache of love stories.

Mariella Frostrup

#96. Now the oppa is the object of romantic affection - the manly man, the stud. You

Javabeans

#97. I have always been suspicious of romantic love. It looks too much like a narcissism shared by two ...

Rita Mae Brown

#98. Much of romantic relationships today have to do when the people are not in the same room. Whether it's texting or e-mailing or Facebooking, there's a kind of distance between the participants.

Ivan Reitman

#99. I think I usually play the woman that, after the person tries to go for some extraordinary feat of romantic accomplishment, they happily wind up with me.

Jessica Hecht

#100. I have such a rich fantasy life, I can't help it. I do make up a lot of romantic stories in my head.

Mindy Kaling