#1 Love Poems
FAMOUS LOVERS
When Love Ends, How Will You Cope?
One reason we lasted so long is that we usually played two people who were very much in love. As we were realistic actors, we became those two people. So we had a divertissement: I had an affair with him, and he with me.
LYNN FONTANNE
on being married for 55 years to costar Alfred Lunt, The New York Times, April 24, 1978
If I were young and handsome as I was, instead of old and faded as I am, and you could lay the empire of the world at my feet, you should never share the heart and hand that once belonged to John, Duke of Marlborough.
SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH
refusing an offer of marriage from the Duke of Somerset, quoted in Marlborough: His Life and Times by W S. Churchill, vol. 4, 1938
My heart's just a mush this evening. I'm consumed by passion for you and it couldn't be more painful. This has been brewing all day and it came down on me like a tornado in the streets of Douarnenex, where I broke into sobs.
SIMONE De BEAUVOIR
letter to Jean-Paul Sartre, September 25, 1939
I didn't wind up in the grotto with a bunch of Playmates; I wound up in bed with my wife and children at 10:30 P.M. watching Murder One. What people don't understand about me is that there is no dark side to my life.
HUGH HEFNER
on his 70th birthday celebration,
Guardian, April 25, 1996
Here I am back and still smouldering with passion, like wine smoking. Not a passion any longer for flesh, but a complete hunger for you, a devouring hunger.
HENRY MILLER,
letter to Anais Nm, August 14, 1932
I've had the boyhood thing of being Elvis. Now I want to be with my best friend, and my best friend's my wife. Who could ask for anything more?
JOHN LENNON
interview on RKO Radio New York, December 8,1980
I never see a flower that pleases me, but I wish for you.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
letter to his wife, 1810
He spoke of love and the Supreme Court.
ELIZABETH BLACK
on marriage proposal from Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black, Christian Science Monitor, February 27, 1986
So you wound up with Apollo
If he's sometimes hard to swallow
Use this.
PAUL NEWMAN
inscription on silver sherry cup given to his wife Joanne Woodward, The New York Times, September 28, 1986
I feel the loss more than I had thought I should.... Without my wishing it she chose to lose herself in me, and the result was she became truly my better half.
MAHATMA GANDHI
on the death of his wife Kasturba, in Arun Gandhi, Daughter of Midnight: The Child Bride of Gandhi, 1998
It is not in my power to tell thee how I have been affected by this dearest of all letters-it was so unexpected-so new a thing to see the breathing of the inmost heart upon paper.
MARY WORDSWORTH
letter to William Wordsworth, August 1,1810
It was with some emotion...that I beheld Albert-who is beautiful.
QUEEN VICTORIA
of her first meeting with Prince Albert (ca 1838), attributed in Albert: Uncrowned King by Stanley Weintraub,1997
First I lost weight, then I lost my voice, and now I've lost Onassis.
MARIA CALLAS
quoted in Woman's Almanac by Barbara McDowell and Hana Umlauf, 1977
Everywhere we go, Nancy makes the world a little better.
RONALD REAGAN
on his wife in film at Republican National Convention, August 22, 1984
You're beautiful, like a May fly
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
to his future wife Mary,
recalled on her death, November 26, 1986
Charles is life itself-pure life, force, like sunlight-and it is for this that I married him and this that holds me to him, caring always, caring desperately what happens to him and whatever he happens to be involved in.
ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH
War Within and Without, 1980
The love we have in our youth is superficial compared to the love that an old man has for his old wife.
WILL DURANT
on his 90th birthday, The New York Times, November
6, 1975
I am marrying her because I love her.
CROWN PRINCE AKIHITO of Japan,
On becoming first member of Japanese royal family to wed a commoner, news summaries, April 12, 1959
When the winds blow and the rains fall and the sun shines through the clouds...he still resolves as he did then, that nothing so fine ever happened to him or anyone else as falling in love with Thee- my dearest heart.
RICHARD M. NIXON
letter to his future wife Pat,
quoted in Pat Nixon by Julie Nixon Eisenhower, 1986
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.
ROBERT FROST
inscribed on gravestone of Frost and his wife Elinor
It took great courage to ask a beautiful young woman to marry me. Believe me, it is easier to play the whole of Petruska on the piano.
ARTUR RUBINSTEIN
A Little Night Music, 1964
I was shocked and ....... with the startling suggestion that I should send from my land, my realm, the woman I intended to marry.
EDWARD, DUKE OF WINDSOR
recalling political advice to send Wallis Warfield Simpson abroad without further delay, A King's Story, 1951
PS. It's all gossip about the prince. I'm not in the habit of taking my girlfriend's beaux.
WALLIS WARFIELD SIMPSON, DUCHESS OF WINDSOR
letter to her aunt, February 18, 1934
"Mad, bad, and dangerous to know."
LADY CAROLINE LAMB
of Lord Byron, diary, March 1812
Lyndon was the most outspoken, straightforward, determined person I'd ever encountered. I knew I'd met something remarkable- but I didn't know quite what.
CLAUDIA "LADY BIRD" JOHNSON
on meeting her future husband,
Saturday Evening Post, February 8, 1964
It was an unspoken pleasure, that having come together so many years, ruined so much and repaired a little, we had endured.
LILLIAN HELLMAN
on her relationship with Dashiell Hammett,
recalled on her death on June 30, 1984
We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep watering it; really look after it and nurture it.
JOHN LENNON
Man of the Decade, broadcast, December 30, 1969
It was a very spasmodic courtship, conducted mainly at long distance with a great clanking of coins in dozens of phone booths.
JACQUELINE KENNEDY ONASSIS
on her romance with John F Kennedy,
quoted in The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys by Doris Kearns Goodwin, 1987
Number 4 should have been number 1. Thanks, Honey
JACK DEMPSEY
dedicating his autobiography to his fourth wife,
in "Unforgettable Jack Dempsey," Readers Digest, November 1985
When he's late for dinner, I know he's either having an affair or is lying dead in the street. I always hope it's the street.
JESSICA TANDY
on her husband Hume Cronyn, Kennedy Center Honors, CBS-TV, December 26, 1986
Use sparingly and wisely.
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