Orson Scott Card on Love

"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them."

"We can wash people in the water all we want, but we can never wash their parents out of their hearts."

"Doesn't love show its face when it satisfies the need of the loved one, for the loved one's sake alone?"

"Love can't conquer anything. Love can't make a scholar into a warrior. Loving her can't make her love me."

"I will love you forever, he thought. I am lying, he thought, and this time he was right."

"I immediately felt so comfortable there. Or if not comfortable, at least willing to bear the discomforts because they fit the awkward places in my heart."

"Even in cultures where marriages are arranged by parents, you’re never actually forbidden to fall in love with your mate."

"'A woman's wisdom is her gift to women,'" Peggy quoted. "'Her beauty is her gift to men. Her love is her gift to God.'"

"The most evil creatures don’t desire the destruction of everything—they only desire to exploit it for themselves."

"You're the only one that I would be glad to be close to forever, because all your secrets are bright and good and I love you for them."

"To say what's in their hearts, regardless of shame. It doesn't change what they feel, what they want. It just helps... loosen them up."

"You as stupid as they come. Of course, I say this with your best interests at heart. Most people are stupid. I don't hold it against them."

"She did love him, you know... It was a selfish, possessive love, but it was all she knew how to give."

"He would rather lose his power for doing right, than keep his power by doing wrong. Because he loves his people more than he loves his office."

"This is what love is, he thought. Doing what you don't want to do, because she needs it so much. And it isn't that bad. And it isn't that hard."

"When he loved his bride it was not a queen he loved, but rather the girl as she might have been if she had not been destroyed in her childhood."

"Permanence was always an illusion, and love was just the disguise that lovers wore to hide the death of their union from each other for a while."

"“I’ve never seen a soft heart turn hard,” said Taleswapper. “At least not without good reason."

"The ways of love are strange and hard: the love you want is always barred; the love you have you want to change. The ways of love are hard and strange."

"Some men are great enough that they can love a whole woman, and not just part of her."

"What does it matter if, by following my heart, I also fulfill someone else’s plan?"

"It is the essence of dignity to pretend to desire what you cannot prevent."

"How does he do it? How does he master people without bluster or bullying? How does he make people fear him or love him, not in spite of his ruthlessness but because of it?"

"How could I hurt her? She'd have to love me before I could do that."

"You're the sort of enemy your enemy must love."

"Don't lie to me! Don't seem so normal when I know you have cut yourself off from me in your heart! If you can put on our affectionate closeness like a mask, then I'll never be able to take joy in it again."

"Love is random; fear is inevitable."

"Just because the only way you can maintain control over your bodily passions is to sit straight in your chair, knees together, hands delicately arranged in our lap, fingers tightly intertwined, does not mean that I am required to do the same."

"Alvin wondered if it was true—if all men had evil in their hearts, and those men as were good, maybe they were simply the ones who controlled theirselves so well they could act contrary to their heart’s desire. But if that were so, then no man was good, not one."

"Show him who I am, so he will pity me instead of fearing me. And then we can turn pity into compassion, and compassion into understanding, and understanding into affection, and affection into love, and love into life, the life of our children, the life of the new self we will become together."