Swoon Worthy Quotes From Our Favourite Romance Novels📚
To Beating Those Monday Blues!
It's the last Monday morning of July 2024. My guess is you’re probably reluctantly on your way to work or preparing to start your day at home, a café, or wherever you are. You’re hoping the day isn’t too horrible, but it’s Monday—the start of another week—and you’d rather stay in bed a little longer. While we can't help with that, we can give you a reason to smile today, despite whatever you’re feeling.
Love is often a difficult emotion to encapsulate into words. People describing their love as indescribable is usually not an overstatement. Think about it—there are times you feel so deeply for someone that you are literally at a loss for words to express your emotions. Suddenly, your vast vocabulary feels very limited, and the words you want to use to adorn your lover seem very underwhelming.
Reading about love can make us yearn too much, and we get that. The characters in these books did an amazing job of telling us how perfect the person they are in love with is. You can pick up a few words for the next time you want to express your love for someone or, like me, you can read these words a billion times, sighing deeply and wishing you could elope with a fictional character. It’s the perfect escape from our realities, giving us a momentary respite from the Monday blues.
Either way here’s to putting a smile on your face.
Prince Henry in a letter to Alex in Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
“Should I tell you that when we're apart, your body comes back to me in dreams? That when I sleep, I see you, the dip of your waist, the freckle above your hip, and when I wake up in the morning, it feels like I've just been with you, the phantom touch of your hand on the back of my neck fresh and not imagined? That I can feel your skin against mine, and it makes every bone in my body ache? That, for a few moments, I can hold my breath and be back there with you, in a dream, in a thousand rooms, nowhere at all?
I think perhaps Hamilton said it better in a letter to Eliza: You engross my thoughts too entirely to allow me to think of anything else— you not only employ my mind all day, but you intrude upon my sleep. I meet you in every dream— and when I wake I cannot close my eyes again for ruminating on your sweetness.”
Elio musing on his older lover, Oliver, in Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
“—this was like coming home, like asking, Where have I been all my life? Which was another way of asking “Where were you in my childhood, Oliver? which was yet another way of asking, What is life without this? which was why, in the end, it was I, and not he, who blurted out, not once, but many, many times, You'll kill me if you stop, you'll kill me if you stop, because it was also my way of bringing full circle the dream and the fantasy, me and him, the longed-for words from mouth to mouth, which was when I must have begun using obscenities that he repeated after me, softly at first, till he said, "Call me by your name and I'll call you by my name," which I'd never done in my life before and which, as soon as I said my own name as though it were his, took me to a realm I never shared with anyone in my life before, or since.”
Augustus talking to Hazel Grace in The Fault In Our Stars by John Greene
“I'm in love with you," he said quietly. "Augustus," I said. "I am," he said.
He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labour has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.”
Patroclus describing Achilles in The Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller
“He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”
Baz, a vampire, to his magician boyfriend Simon Snow in Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
“You were the sun, and I was crashing into you. I'd wake up every morning and think, 'This will end in flames.”
Special mention because YOU are your greatest love: Ijeoma Umebinyuo in her book Questions For Ada
“One day, your bones will get weary of men who refuse to worship the God in you. On that day you will either slit your soul or gather your spirit, leaving any man who has never called you holy.”
We hope these quotes bring a little love and warmth to your Monday. Share your thoughts with us— which ones made you swoon?
And while you're reflecting on these love declarations, we'd love to know your favourite romance novels and love quotes!
Reading is a fantastic way to uplift our spirits and find comfort. If you’re looking for more ways to enhance your well-being, check out A Girl's Guide to Living Well.
Cheers!
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With love,
Udo, Feature Staff Writer at The 21 Magazine 💗