Quotes About Love Not Being Enough

“So I'm telling you, Kami, I won't miss you anymore. I won't hurt for you. I won't need you like I do. And I won't love you. Loving you is what caused all this. It's what ruined us. And I am so sorry for that. I hate myself for failing you. For not being enough to save you. But I won't fail you again. If this is what you need-for me to never think of you again-then that is what I am going to do. I'll forget you. I'll stop loving you like I do. Because, dammit, I do. So much it fucking tears me apart.I hope this is what you want. I know I didn't get it right the first time, but I promise to try like hell to make it better.Always (Never)”

— S.L. Jennings

“On bad days I talk to Death constantly, not about suicide because honestly that's not dramatic enough. Most of us love the stage and suicide is definitely your last performance and being addicted to the stage, suicide was never an option - plus people get to look you over and stare at your fatty bits and you can't cross your legs to give that flattering thigh angle and that's depressing. So we talk. She says things no one else seems to come up with, like let's have a hotdog and then it's like nothing's impossible.
She told me once there is a part of her in everyone, though Neil believes I'm more Delirium than Tori, and Death taught me to accept that, you know, wear your butterflies with pride. And when I do accept that, I know Death is somewhere inside of me. She was the kind of girl all the girls wanted to be, I believe, because of her acceptance of "what is." She keeps reminding me there is change in the "what is" but change cannot be made till you accept the "what is.”

— Tori Amos

“I never thought of myself as anything but plain and ordinary until you came along. The way you look at me, the way you see me ... you pull something out of me. When I want to hide, you urge me forward. When I think I'm not good enough, you make me believe I am. When I feel anything but pretty, you convince me I'm beautiful. Just being around you makes me feel special. You don't think you're good at loving people, but you are. Your friends, your family ... the level of love that you have for people astounds me. You don't think people love you back, but they do. They fiercely love you. I fiercely love you. I've never met anyone as passionate as you, as kindhearted as you ... as amazing as you. You love with every fiber of your soul. You inspire me every day. And if you'll agree to be my husband, I'll do my best to make you proud of me, to inspire you.”

— S.C. Stephens

“I want to be happy and not feel guilty about it. I want to be curious without being called indulgent. I want to be accepted regardless of what I look like, what I do for a living, my marital status, whether I have kids, or whether you think I'm nice enough, hospitable enough, or humble enough to measure up to your impossible standards. I want purpose. I want contentment. I want to be loved and give love unreservedly in return. I want to be seen. I want to matter. I want freedom. I want to be ... I want to just be.”

— Liza Palmer

“Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“How can you regret never having found true love? That's like saying you regret not being born a genius. People don't have control over such things. It either happens or it doesn't. It's a gift - a present that most never get. It's more like a miracle, really, when you think of it. I mean, first you have to find that person, and then you have to get to know them to realize just what they mean to you - that right there is ridiculously difficult. Then ... then that person has to feel the same way about you. It's like searching for a specific snowflake, and even if you manage to find it, that's not good enough. You still have to find its matching pair. What are the odds?”

— Michael J. Sullivan

“Purchasing power is a license to purchase power. The old proletariat sold its labour power in order to subsist; what little leisure time it had was passed pleasantly enough in conversations, arguments, drinking, making love, wandering, celebrating and rioting. The new proletarian sells his labour power in order to consume. When he's not flogging himself to death to get promoted in the labour hierarchy, he's being persuaded to buy himself objects to distinguish himself in the social hierarchy. The ideology of consumption becomes the consumption of ideology.”

— Raoul Vaneigem

“Love was never enough, not without mutual respect and a great deal of drudgery and effort. And even then, it wasn't enough. Wanting each other, being open to change, pushing each other to improve and grow
for the better
working to deserve each other, was the key.”

— Penny Reid

“There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer: no disease that love will not heal: no door that enough love will not open ... It makes no difference how deep set the trouble: how hopeless the outlook: how muddled the tangle: how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world ...”

— Emmet Fox

“Fynn, I love you.' When Anna said that, every word was shattered with the fullness of meaning she packed into it. Her 'I' was a totality. Whatever this 'I' was for Anna it was packed tight with being. Like the light that didn't fray, Anna's 'I' didn't fray either; it was pure and all of one piece. Her use of the word 'love' was not sentimental or mushy, it was impelling and full of courage and encouragement. For Anna, 'love' meant the recognition of perfectibility in another. Anna 'saw' a person in every part. Anna 'saw' a 'you'. Now that is something to experience, to be seen as a 'you', clearly and definitely, with no parts hidden. Wonderful and frightening. I'd always understood that it was Mister God who saw you clearly and in your entirety but then all Anna's efforts were directed to being like Mister God, so perhaps the trick is catching if only you try hard enough.”

— Fynn

“Diets are based on the unspoken fear that you are a madwoman, a food terrorist, a lunatic ... The promise of a diet is not only that you will have a different body; it is that in having a different body, you will have a different life. If you hate yourself enough, you will love yourself. If you torture yourself enough, you will become a peaceful, relaxed human being.”

— Geneen Roth

“Most couples get married because it's time, not because they're in love. They might have money issues, parental pressure, or they're simply tired of being alone-so they pick Mr. Good Enough and tie the knot.”

— H.M. Ward

“My day isn't complete until I'm deep inside you. Your body wrapped around mine is the only way I feel whole. But don't think it's just sex and a physical response to you that I'm feeling. It's not ... it's so much more. You've opened me in a way that leaves me bleeding, vulnerable. Being with you, making love to you, it only solidifies what I feel for you. I know that I've become one of those spouting, love-sick idiots, but what it all boils down to is three words that don't mean nearly enough ... I love you. Letter from Kellan to Kiera.”

— S.C. Stephens

“Listen, Liar Liar, you promised. Enough with Alex Bainbridge."
Home truths are not meant to be comfortable, I know.Frankie knows it, too, and for a teeny tiny second, I hated him just a teeny tiny bit for knowing just where to stick the pin.
I glared at him. "How did this go from being about Sadie to an assault on my honesty? Huh?"
He shrugged. "I love you, Fiorella. We ain't got no money, honey, but we got love."
I've never been able to hate Frankie for more than a second at a time.”

— Melissa Jensen

“Self-respect, self-preservation, both of these things. And because you being willing to put up with my love is not good enough. Not even remotely. I'm not going to be your regular live-in fuck buddy, Jimmy, exclusive or not. Your whole offer is soul destroying.”

— Kylie Scott

“There is nothing novel about trying to become happy. And one can become happy, within certain limits, without any recourse to the practice of meditation. But conventional sources of happiness are unreliable, being dependent upon changing conditions. It is difficult to raise a happy family, to keep yourself and those you love healthy, to acquire wealth and find creative and fulfilling ways to enjoy it, to form deep friendships, to contribute to society in ways that are emotionally rewarding, to perfect a wide variety of artistic, athletic, and intellectual skills-and to keep the machinery of happiness running day after day. There is nothing wrong with being fulfilled in all these ways-except for the fact that, if you pay close attention, you will see that there is still something wrong with it. These forms of happiness aren't good enough. Our feelings of fulfillment do not last. And the stress of life continues.”

— Sam Harris

“Making love. I've cringed every time Hester used those words. So off and awkward and unrelated to what actually goes on between two bodies. You make breakfast, you make time, you make the team. Love? Not so much. But I get it now. Like making fire. Not rubbing two sticks together to pull something out of thin air. More like finally being able, knowing enough, to warm your hands at something you built, stick by stick.”

— Huntley Fitzpatrick

“I love being on the water, wakesurfing and wakeboarding. I'm not thinking about golf. I'm just wondering if my cooler's got enough ice to make it through the day.”

— Dustin Johnson

“He stayed with her for so long because he liked the idea of being in love. He has an empty well in his heart that needs to be filled by someone. Anyone. But that's not enough for me, and it won't be enough for him either once he finally realizes the truth.”

— Stephanie Perkins

“When I say I love you and you don't believe me, you're being a jerk. Basically what you're saying is I only love conditionally. You think you're being self-deprecating and funny, but you're really saying I'm not a good enough person to love you if you have a few flaws. It gets old.”

— Donald Miller

“Here Mr. Tushman looked up at the audience. "Kinder than is necessary," he repeated. "What a marvelous line, isn't it? Kinder than is necessary. Because it's not enough to be kind. One should be kinder than needed. Why I love that line, that concept, is that it reminds me that we carry with us, as human beings, not just the capacity to be kind, but the very choice of kindness. And what does that mean? How is that measured? You can't use a yardstick. It's like I was saying just before: it's not like measuring how much you've grown in a year. It's not exactly quantifiable, is it? How do we know we've been kind? What is being kind, anyway?”

— R.J. Palacio

“The average woman, unless she is particularly ill-favored, regards loving and being loved as a normal part of life. If a man says he loves her she believes him. Indeed some women are convinced they are adored by men who can be seen by all to be running in the opposite direction. For homosexuals this is not so. Love and admiration have to be won against heavy odds. Any declaration of affection requires proof. So many approaches made to them are insincere - even hostile. What better proof of love can there be than money? A ten-shilling note showed incontrovertibly just how mad about you a man is. Even in the minds of some women a confusion exists between love and money if the quantity is large enough. They evade the charge of mercenariness by using the cash they extort from one man to deal a bludgeoning blow of humiliation upon another. Some homosexuals attempt this gambit, but it is risky. The giving of money is a masculine act and blurs the internal image.”

— Quentin Crisp

“I laid the side of my face on his back, hugging him close. "Nothing feels right without you. Not school or home," I cried. "Everything is just giving me enough air to get to the next day without you. I never stopped being yours."
He dropped his head back, letting out a sigh.
I swallowed, taking my chance. "I love you, Jared. I've always loved you, and I will always love you.”

— Penelope Douglas

“There can be no relation more strange, more critical, than that between two beings who know each other only with their eyes, who meet daily, yes, even hourly, eye each other with a fixed regard, and yet by some whim or freak of convention feel constrained to act like strangers. Uneasiness rules between them, unslaked curiosity, a hysterical desire to give rein to their suppressed impulse to recognize and address each other; even, actually, a sort of strained but mutual regard. For one human being instinctively feels respect and love for another human being so long as he does not know him well enough to judge him; and that he does not, the craving he feels is evidence.”

— Thomas Mann

“I have seen many cases like N. during the five years I've been in practice. I sometimes picture these unfortunates as men and women being pecked to death by predatory birds. The birds are invisible - at least until a psychiatrist who is good, or lucky, or both, sprays them with his version of Luminol and shines the right light on them - but they are nevertheless very real. The wonder is that so many OCDs manage to live productive lives, just the same. They work, they eat (often not enough or too much, it's true), they go to movies, they make love to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their wives and husbands ... and all the time those birds are there, clinging to them and pecking away little bits of flesh.”

— Stephen King

“I was being sincere. Hold on to it as long as you can, Lark. Life knocks the stuffing out of you
eventually. Look at me. Look at Cade. As long as things are simple, keep them that way. As long as
unrequited liking is the least of your worries ... it's not so bad."
"It feels bad."
"I know. Take comfort in the fact that that actually makes you pretty normal."
"Not comforted."
He laughed. "That's normal too."
"Shut up."
"Love you too." He didn't say it often enough. But it had never been easy for him to say.
That earned him a smile. "I do. Love you, you know. Thanks for trying. And thanks for ... being
willing to kill someone for me."
"It's what brothers are for. 'Night”

— Maisey Yates

“I say this because all religions, accurately understood, will take away your fear of not being enough. I believe there is a way to understand the tenets of your religion, right now, that will take away your fear and make you feel loved and safe. The problem is that no matter what you believe or to which religion you belong, there are two ways you can experience your beliefs. There is a fear way you can experience your religion, and a love way to experience it. All religions can be experienced both ways. All life philosophies can be experienced both ways too.
If you search your personal books of scripture, you will find both ideas equally represented. There will be verses or sections that validate a fear-based view of God and there will be some that validate a love-based view of God. Don't be confused by this. Both ideas had to be represented for you to have free agency. Anything less than equal representation of each idea would take away your freedom to choose.”

— Kimberly Giles

“I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.
- Martin Luther King Jr.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Even when we're with someone we love, we're foolish enough to think of her body and soul as being separate. To stand before the person we love is not the same as loving her true self, for we are only apt to regard her physical beauty as the indispensable mode of her existence. When time and space intervene, it is possible to be deceived by both, but on the other hand, it is equally possible to draw twice as close to her real self.”

— Yukio Mishima

“O'Brien: How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?
Winston: By making him suffer.
O'Brien: Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred.”

— George Orwell

“SADNESS OF THE INTELLECT: Sadness of being misunderstood [sic]; Humor sadness; Sadness of love wit[hou]t release; Sadne[ss of be]ing smart; Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean]; Sadness of having options; Sadness of wanting sadness; Sadness of confusion; Sadness of domes[tic]ated birds, Sadness of fini[shi]ng a book; Sadness of remembering; Sadness of forgetting; Anxiety sadness ...”

— Jonathan Safran Foer

“Love, I find, is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.”

— Zora Neale Hurston

“Once you lose attachment to how you want things to be because you realize you don't control anything, there's a curiously liberating aspect of that. I've always been a control freak, I've always felt that if I try hard enough, everyone I love will be kept safe and everything will be okay. Being shown, in such brutal terms, that that's simply not the way it works, in someways, it messed me up. I've been through hell, but on another level, if you pile up so much tragedy, it either destroys you, or you just start laughing about it. Because at the end of the day, no one gets out alive.”

— Daniele Bolelli

“I think now that being free is not being powerful or rich or well regarded or without obligation but being able to love. To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.”

— Jeanette Winterson

“Love potions? For Will 'erondale? 'Tain't my way to turn down payment, but any man who looks like you 'as got no need of love potions, and that's a fact."
"No," Will said, a little desperation in his voice. "I was looking for the opposite, really
something that might put an end to being in love."
"An 'atred potion?" Mol still sounded amused.
"I was hoping for something more akin to indifference? Tolerance?"
She made a snorting noise, astonishingly human for a ghost. "I 'ardly like to tell you this, Nephilim, but if you want a girl to 'ate you, there's easy enough ways of making it 'appen. You don't need my help with the poor thing."
And with that she vanished, spinning away into the mists among the graves. Will, looking after her, sighed. "Not for her," he said under his breath, though there was no one to hear him, "for me ... " And he leaned his head against the cold iron gate.”

— Cassandra Clare

“I feel so honored to be able to say "What I do is for my son" without that being an excuse to do stupid things (like what I've heard from some moms over the years, doing lazy, stupid things and then saying it's all for their children). No, I will not say that everything I do, I do for God! And no, I will not say that everything I do, I do because I am a sacrificial saint who is in love with people and should be canonized one day! I've had enough of those lines! Overkill already! It will take the love of a mother to change the world.”

— C. JoyBell C.

“Would you really fight for him?" I nod.
But the nod isn't enough, so I go on.
"In fact, I would tear through rubble with my bare hands to get to him. I would lift cars. I would wrestle down anyone who said we shouldn't be together. I would stare down life and kick it in the ass if I had to. Because if you want to know the truth
if you really want to know the truth
none of that could be nearly as hard as being in love with him and not being able to tell anyone about it. Including him. I have this thing inside me, and it's angry and it's scared and it's uncertain and most of all it's so completely in love with him, and it would do anything to keep him, even if it means things staying the way they are now.”

— Nina LaCour

“Working hard and doing doing great work is as imperative as breathing. Creating great work warms the heart and enriches the soul. Those of us lucky enough to spend our days doing something we love, something we're good at, are rich. If you do not work passionately (even furiously) at being the best in the world at what you do, you fail your talent, your destiny, and your god.”

— George Lois

“Death is, in some ways, unacceptable. It's just an astonishing fact of our being here that we die; but I think worse than that is if we live long enough, we lose everyone we love in this world. I mean people die and disappear, and we're left with this stark mystery: just the sheer not knowing of what happened to them.”

— Sam Harris

“Do you think you love your children better than He who made them? Is not your love what it is because He put it into your heart first? Have you not often been cross with them? Sometimes unjust to them? Whence came the returning love that rose from unknown depths in your being, and swept away the anger and the injustice? You did not create that love. Probably you were not good enough to send for it by prayer. But it came. God sent it. He makes you love your children.”

— George MacDonald