Romance is everything.

—Gertrude Stein

Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of every day life into a golden haze.

—Elinor Glynn

Love is very patient, / Love is very kind, / Love is never envious / Or vaunted up with pride.

 —1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

And that heart which was a wild garden was given to him who loved only trim lawns. And the imbecile carried the princess into slavery.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Marriage is an extraordinary thing, and I doubt if any outsider — even a child of the marriage —has the right to judge.

—Agatha Christie

People should worry about each other. Because worry is just love in its worst form. But it’s still love.

—Simon Gray

The beginning of love is to let those we love to be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

—Thomas Merton

I don’t want to live. I want to love first and live incidentally.

—Zelda Fitzgerald

If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus a day so I never have to live without you.

—A.A. Milne

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.

—G.K. Chesterton

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only with what you are expecting to give — which is everything.

—Katharine Hepburn

At different stages in our lives, the signs of love may vary: dependence, attraction, contentment, worry, loyalty, grief, but at heart the source is always the same. Human beings have the rare capacity to connect with each other, against all odds.

– Michael Dorris

A kiss is a lovely trick, designed by nature, to stop words when speech becomes superfluous.

 —Ingrid Bergman

You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.

 —Sam Keen

Only love interests me, and I am only in contact with things that revolve around love.

 —Marc Chagall

(Each week this column features quotations gleaned from the readings and experiences of our editors, reporters, readers, and friends. All are invited to submit quotations for inclusion here. They may be sent to Gleanings, c/o The Newtown Bee, 5 Church Hill Road, Newtown, CT 06470 or emailed to editor@thebee.com.)