Help me find a quote like this?
July 21, 2015 9:59 PM   Subscribe

I'm trying to find a quote that fits a romantic (but not overly saccharine) mood that basically says "I do this because of my love for you, I believe in it because you believe in it, I stand by your side against adversity because I know I am with you."
posted by cyrusw8 to Writing & Language (13 answers total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
I think the way you phrased it says it very nicely. Not sure what your intended purpose is, but I think hearing this in your own words may mean more to somebody than even the most on-point quote.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 10:38 PM on July 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


Response by poster: Lol, I know but I don't feel like turning on my poet mode. I don't want to milk my question, but I'd also be interested in a quote that basically says "I see your face everywhere" or something along those lines. (Just those two, MeFi admin. I am sorry.)
posted by cyrusw8 at 10:44 PM on July 21, 2015


Based on your tags, this is probably not quite what you were going for, but I feel like you'd be open to supplementation--the first thing that came to mind when I read your expressed comment was one of my favorite songs, Nickel Creek's version of "When You Come Back Down." The entire song is really quite lovely, but here's a snatch of the lyrics:
When you're flyin' high, take my heart along
I'll be the harmony to every lonely song
That you learn to play

When you're soarin' through the air
I'll be your solid ground
Take every chance you dare
I'll still be there
When you come back down
When you come back down
Oh, and on preview about 'seeing your face everywhere', and since I'm in a Nickel Creek mood, there's also their cover of Bob Dylan's Tomorrow is A Long Time:
I can't see my reflection in the waters
I can't speak the sounds that show no pain
I can't hear the echo of my footsteps
Or remember the sound of my own name
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin'
And if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin'
Yes and only if she was lyin' by me
Then I'd lie in my bed once again
Both of these I guess can be kind of saccharine, but no less lovely. I'll think about good english literature quotes though.

I think all that doctor tough love meant was that supporting someone for "no rational reason" is even more romantic--"I do this because of my love for you," as you said--than otherwise. Faith that requires proof is not faith, and all that. Nothing against belief vs. rational thinking, just because "no" and "rational" were right next to each other in the sentence. At least, that was my take.
posted by spelunkingplato at 10:56 PM on July 21, 2015


Reminds me of "Heartlines" by Florence and the Machine. "Just keep following the heartlines on your hand/ cause I am."
posted by bleep at 11:14 PM on July 21, 2015


It made me think of Bright Eyes - First Day of My Life

Specifically,
"Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don't know where I am
I don't know where I've been
But I know where I want to go"
posted by Crystalinne at 11:26 PM on July 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


"I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday." (The Beatrice Letters)
posted by tackypink at 12:06 AM on July 22, 2015


I love love poems. Sigh. One of my all-time favourites is by E. E. Cummings. Two verses of it below, using his own approach to punctuation, capitalisation and the like.

e. e. cummings, "i carry your heart":

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
posted by yesbut at 12:37 AM on July 22, 2015 [3 favorites]


And a classic literary quote:
“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking."
Leo Tolstoy (from Anna Karenina).
posted by yesbut at 1:12 AM on July 22, 2015 [4 favorites]


I've gone through my whole poetry collection and this is the only one that has a touch of what you are looking for, - "I do this because of my love for you". I think it's a lovely poem, but not in any way saccharine, and shows the mutual love and respect between a well established couple.

True Love by Judith Viorst

It is true love because
I put on eyeliner and a concerto and make pungent observations about the great issues of the day
Even when there's no one here but him,
And because
I do not resent watching the Green Bay Packer
Even though I am philosophically opposed to football,
And because
When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the middle of the street,
I always hope he's dead.

It's true love because
If he said quit drinking martinis but I kept drinking them and the next morning I couldn't get out of bed,
He wouldn't tell me he told me,
And because
He is willing to wear unironed undershorts
Out of respect for the fact that I am philosophically opposed to ironing,
And because
If his mother was drowning and I was drowning and he had to choose one of us to save,
He says he'd save me.

It's true love because
When he went to San Francisco on business while I had to stay home with the painters and the exterminator and the baby who was getting the chicken pox,
He understood why I hated him,
And because
When I said that playing the stock market was juvenile and irresponsible and then the stock I wouldn't let him buy went up twenty-six points,
I understood why he hated me,

And because
Despite cigarette cough, tooth decay, acid indigestion, dandruff, and other features of married life that tend to dampen the fires of passion,
We still feel something
We can call
True love.
posted by guy72277 at 1:15 AM on July 22, 2015 [7 favorites]


Not sure if it quite fits, but it reminds me of these words from the film Im Juli:

"Meine Herzallerliebste, ich bin tausende von Meilen gegangen. Ich habe Flüsse überquert, Berge versetzt. Ich habe gelitten, und ich habe Qualen über mich ergehen lassen. Ich bin der Versuchung widerstanden, und ich bin der Sonne gefolgt, um dir gegenüberstehen zu können und dir zu sagen: Ich liebe dich."

Translation from me:
"My dearest love, I have walked thousands of miles. I have crossed rivers and moved mountains. I have suffered and endured agony. I have resisted temptation and followed the sun, so that I can stand in front of you and tell you: I love you."
posted by kinddieserzeit at 4:20 AM on July 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


To F--S S. O--D

Thou wouldst be loved?- then let thy heart
From its present pathway part not!
Being everything which now thou art,
Be nothing which thou art not.
So with the world thy gentle ways,
Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise,
And love- a simple duty.


Edgar Allan Poe
posted by CincyBlues at 4:24 AM on July 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


From an old valentine: "Valentine, I'll love you till this world is blown to bits, and then...I'll love your bits."
posted by mmiddle at 5:26 AM on July 22, 2015


I always like a bit of Shakespeare, personally. The first is in the vein of seeing the loved one everywhere; the second is a classic for a reason.

SONNET CXIII

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird of flower, or shape, which it doth latch:
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:
For if it see the rudest or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,
The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature:
Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true mind thus makes mine eye untrue.

SONNET CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
posted by Athanassiel at 10:16 PM on July 22, 2015


« Older Help me find my people - online or group support...   |   I know that I hung on a wind-rocked tree, nine... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.