20 quotes from literature that perfectly describe what it is like to be in love

As English poet and dramatist WS Gilbert famously said,‘It’s love that makes the world go round’ (though some would argue it’s money).

Love, besides revenge I guess, happens to be the most popular subject in arts and literature. Reams have written – ever since humankind invented language – about the trials and tribulations of being in love . It may be a much mythified and abused emotion in popular culture, but it is also the most wonderful and universal one. Here’s looking at some of the most beautiful articulations in literature about experiencing love:

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She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.

― J.D. Salinger, A Girl I Knew

And I guess I realised at that moment that I really did love her. Because there was nothing to gain, and that didn’t matter.

— Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Love when it hits us for real has a half-life of forever.

— Junot Diaz, This is How You Lose Her

As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.

— John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Hang on,” said a voice close by Harry’s left ear and he caught a sudden waft of that flowery smell he had picked up in Slughorn’s dungeon. He looked around and saw that Ginny had joined them.

— JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

— Jane Austen, Emma

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.

— Jane Austen, Persuasion

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

— Jane Austen, Pride And Prejudice

Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.

— Toni Morrison, Beloved

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

— Jalaluddin Rumi

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