February is obviously, all about love because of Valentine’s Day. But did you know that some of the most romantic things ever said were not actually said, but written? Some of the most romantic speeches and ideas have come straight out of books. Authors have the luxury of thinking of precise words that make any person’s heart melt. These things can’t happen in real life simply because you don’t ordinarily get several hours to agonize over just the right words.
So, feel free to live vicariously through these romantic passages from literature.
Oh, and read the books too, if you haven’t. They are all great.
Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
“When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!”
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
“I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.”
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
“You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell; what I mean is, that I am under the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted in vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you could draw me to any exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of my thoughts, so that I am fit for nothing, is what I mean by your being the ruin of me. But if you would return a favourable answer to my offer of myself in marringe, you could draw me to any good – every good – with equal force.”
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.”
The Road by Cormac Mccarthy
“Lying under such a myriad of stars. The sea’s black horizon. He rose and walked out and stood barefoot in the sand and watched the pale surf appear all down the shore and roll and crash and darken again. When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said if he were God he would have made the world just so and no different.”
The Little Minister by J.M. Barrie
“Love, it is said, is blind, but love is not blind. It is an extra eye, which shows us what is most worthy of regard. To see the best is to see most clearly, and it is the lover’s privilege.”
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
“You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. We pardon to the extent that we love. Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again. And great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves. & even loved in spite of ourselves.”
And another one from this book (which I believe is probably the most romantic book in the world) :
“Cosette, in her seclusion, like Marius in his, was all ready to take fire. Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, was slowly bringing these two beings near each other, fully charged and all languishing with the stormy electricities of passion,—these two souls which held love as two clouds hold lightning, and which were to meet and mingle in a glace like clouds in a flash.
The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only. The rest is only the rest, and comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than these great shocks which two souls give each other in exchanging this spark.
At that particular moment when Cosette unconsciously looked with this glance which so affected Marius, Marius had no suspicion that he also had a glance which affected Cosette.”
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul…the sight of you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me…
In the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance – and shall thank you and bless you for it – that my last avowal of myself was made to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carried in your heart…
O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!”
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 
“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 
“I must, then, repeat continually that we are forever sundered – and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him.”
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem apart of it.”
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Sigh and swoon! Such wonderful quotes 😀 I especially enjoyed the ones from Les Mis, looove that book!
It’s always been one of my all-time favorites!
Where is CYRANO? Act 5, Scene 5 Cyrano de Bergerac Edmund Rostand Cyrano’s Gazette: Cyrano (growing paler and paler)
The nineteenth, Saturday:
having eaten eight helpings of fruit conserve
the King had a fever: two lancet cuts served
to condemn the sickness for lèse-majesté,
and the royal pulse was calm again, they say!
On Sunday, were consumed, at the Queen’s grand ball,
seven hundred and sixty three white wax candles:
our troops, they say, have beaten the Austrians:
four witches were hanged. The little dog of Madame
d’Athis sadly required to be purged again…
Roxane Monsieur de Bergerac, will you please be silent!
Cyrano Monday – nothing – Lygdamire changed her lover.
Roxane Oh!
Cyrano (whose face changes more and more)
Tuesday, all the Court were at Fontainebleau.
Wednesday, La Montglat said to Comte de Fiesque:
‘No!’ Thursday – Mancini, was Queen!- Well scarcely less!
The twenty-fifth, La Monglat, to Comte Fiesque, said:
‘Yes.’ And Saturday, the twenty-sixth…
(He closes his eyes. His head falls forward. Silence.)
Roxane (surprised at his voice ceasing, turns round, looks at him, and rising, terrified)
He’s fainted?
(She runs toward him, crying)
Cyrano!
Cyrano (opening his eyes, in an unconcerned voice)
What is it?…What?…
(He sees Roxane bending over him, and, hastily pressing his hat on his head, and shrinking back in his chair)
No! No! I assure you,
it’s nothing! Let me be!
Roxane But …
Cyrano It’s only my wound …
from Arras…that…sometimes…you know …
Roxane My poor friend!
Cyrano But it’s nothing. It’s ending.
(He smiles with an effort.)
See! It’s at an end!
Roxane Each of us has his wound: mine is still living:
always fresh, it’s here, all that old suffering,
(She puts her hand to her breast.)
It’s here, beneath this fading letter where you could,
if you looked, still see the tears, the stains of blood!
(Twilight begins to fall.)
Cyrano His letter! Didn’t you say one day you’d suffer
me to read it?
Roxane Ah you wish to? His letter?
Cyrano Yes…I would…to-day…
Roxane (giving him the bag from round her neck)
Take it!
Cyrano (taking it)
Can I open it?
Roxane Open…read!…
(She comes back to her tapestry frame, folds it up, sorts her wools.)
Cyrano (reading)
‘Roxane, farewell, since I shall die!…
Roxane (stopping, astonished)
Aloud?
Cyrano ‘I think my love that it will be tonight!
My soul still heavy with unspoken love, I pass!
No more, no longer, will my intoxicated eyes, alas,
my glances for which…’
Roxane How you read, so fine!…
His letter.
Cyrano (continuing)
…for which it meant tremulous delight,
be able to kiss the gestures you make, in flight:
and I see, again, that little familiar way
you have of touching your forehead, and wish to say…’
Roxane How you read it, now – that letter!
Cyrano ‘And say, again:
Farewell!…’
Roxane You read it…
Cyrano ‘My dear, my dear one,
my treasure…’
Roxane (dreamily ):
In a voice, so…
Cyrano ‘My love!…’
Roxane In a voice, so…
(she shivers)
Ah…not one that I hear for the first time, though
(She comes nearer very softly, without his perceiving it, passes behind his chair, and, noiselessly leaning over him, looks at the letter. The darkness deepens.)
Cyrano ‘My heart has never forgotten you for one second,
and I am, and will be, even in the world beyond,
the one who loves you beyond measure, the one…’
(The shades of evening fall imperceptibly.)
Roxane (putting her hand on his shoulder)
How are you able to read, now? Night has fallen!
(He starts, turns, sees her close to him. Suddenly alarmed, he holds his head down. Then in the dusk, which has now completely enfolded them, she says, very slowly, with clasped hands)
Was this, for fourteen years, the role he was playing:
of the kind old friend, here merely to be amusing?
Cyrano Roxane!
Roxane Then, it was you!