From The Straits Times    |

1. Our Union by Hafiz

“You feel cold so I reach for a blanket to cover
our shivering feet.

A hunger comes into your body
so I run to my garden and start digging potatoes.

You asked for a few words of comfort and guidance and
I quickly kneel by your side offering you
a whole book as a
gift.

You ache with loneliness one night so much
you weep, and I say

here is a rope, tie it around me,
I will be your
companion
for life.”

 

2. Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

“i do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
i want to be full on my own
i want to be so complete
i could light a whole city
and then
i want to have you
cause the two of us combined
could set it on fire”

 

3. Louis de Bernieres

“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like
volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a
decision. You have to work out whether your roots have 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 promulgation of promises of eternal passion.
That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what
is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art
and a fortunate accident.

Those that truly love have roots
that grow towards each other underground, and, when all the pretty
blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one
tree and not two.”

 

4. A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway

“At night, there was the feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a woman wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.”

 

5. Warum (Why) by Erich Fried

“It is nonsense
says reason
It is what it is
says love

It is calamity
says calculation
It is nothing but pain
says fear
It is hopeless
says insight
It is what it is
says love

It is ludicrous
says pride
It is foolish
says caution
It is impossible
says experience
It is what it is 
says love” 

 

6. Rumi

“The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along”

 

7. John Steinbeck’s letter of his son

“First — if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second — There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.”