#courtship

I have been used to consider poetry as "the food of love" said Darcy. "Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away. ↗

— Jane Austen

#banter #courtship #poetry #food

It would be a primal offering of food from man to woman and a satisfyingly primitive declaration of intent. However, he mused, one could never be sure these days who would be offended by being handed a dead mallard bleeding from a breast full of tooth-breaking shot and sticky about the neck with dog saliva. ↗

— Helen Simonson

#humor #food

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. -Much Ado About Nothing ↗

— William Shakespeare

#courtship #love #love

Jack shook his head. 'Books. What is it with women and books? My sisters were the same. They were always buying books for boys they fancied.' Ellie bent down and picked up the stone and put it on the table. 'It's like sending a love letter without having to write it yourself,' she said softly. ↗

— Hazel Osmond

#courtship #love-letters #love

My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#love #love

...I dare say if you'd asked him plumply what he meant in regard to the young lady, he would have told you - if he knew.' 'Why, don't you think he does know, Bromfield?' 'I'm not at all sure he does. You women think that because a young man dangles after a girl, or girls, he's attached to them. It doesn't at all follow. He dangles because he must, and doesn't know what to do with his time, and because they seem to like it. I dare say that Tom has dangled a good deal in this instance because there was nobody else in town. ↗

— William Dean Howells

#love #love

Each time a girl approached the table, Mortimer would smile. Like this: And each time the girl would shriek and run away. ↗

— Kelly DiPucchio

#love #smiles #zombies #love

There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. ↗

— Dodie Smith

#marriage #love

She had surrendered her virtue at six-and-ten, to a beautiful blond-haired sailor on a trading galley up from Lys. He only knew six words of the Common Tongue, but “fuck” was one of them—the very word she’d hoped to hear. ↗

— George R.R. Martin

#humour #beauty

During courtship, guarding each other's purity and refraining from intimacy are the acts of lovemaking. ↗

— Joshua Harris

#love #relationship #love