ADSactly Literature: Famous Writers on Love

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_{Photo by Yiqun Tang on Unsplash}

I think I'm not alone in saying that words can work wonders on the soul, regardless the state it's in. That's why we read books, after all (or perhaps even Steemit posts), because we like knowing there is someone else out there who understands the magic ways in which our brain works. Well, magic to us, anyway.

Nobody wants to feel alone and finding yourself in someone else's words is an incredible feeling that many of us crave. So, we read in search of kindred spirits. And we find them, some easier than others. Maybe you're feeling a particular kind of indecisiveness about whether your parakeet would be happier in the wild jungle of Tanzania. Oh, just an example, but you get the idea – it might be a bit harder to find someone who gets that specifically. Though not impossible, not by a long shot.
Then, there are the easier, more common feelings that we all share, at some point in life. Say, for example love. Everyone has felt love at some point in their life, it's impossible not to. And many have written about it.
I don't really see writers in term of genre, but rather as writers of life. Because regardless if you're writing a horror story or a children's book, what's going on inside your soul will undoubtedly reflect unto the page. And that's amazing because we're not alone when that happens. Someone else has been through this and I, for one, take great comfort in knowing my favorite writers have gone through the same heart-twisting feelings that I'm going through.

So, without further ado, here's a list of famous writers and their thoughts on love. Maybe you relate to some of them. I know I do, and I hope you do as well.

1. Charles Bukowski

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Charles Bukowski was a prolific American (well, German-American) writer of the 20th century, who spoke up for the all the misfits, gave a voice to the down and dirty. It seems impossible not to connect with at least some of Bukowski's writing, because he wrote so much about life. He was the father of all life writers, as it were, because everything in his pages is about it, about love, hate, pain, alcoholism, suffering, loss. Feeling.
He was a very human writer, very close to the reader. Where many others were set up on a bit of a pedestal, he could've easily been your next door neighbor. And obviously, he had some interesting truths about love to share.

I want to be with you, it is as simple, and as complicated as that.

Now, I told you he spoke plainly. And this is a feeling that anyone who's had at least a crush can relate to. It's that awful feeling of drowning when you're not with the object of your affection.

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This poem is another great example – who can't relate to this? Who doesn't have a small room somewhere in the forgotten corners of his or her soul occupied by old lovers? Who hasn't been at a point in life where laughter seemed impossible and then found a way to laugh again?

2. Neil Gaiman

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Now, this one I felt I had to share, because it's a quote that's meant so much to me. And I think, to many many others, as it was written long before I was even born, so it's had over 20 years of affecting people.

You know what I love about this one in particular? That there's something delighted inside its brokenness. The speaker is clearly in pieces, utterly heartbroken. There's love inside the words and to me, that is phenomenal – that there can be so much love in words about pain. So much feeling.

Oh Missy, shall I sing the body and the blood of you, the lips and the eyes? A thousand hearts I would give you, as your Valentine. Proudly I wave my staff in the air and dance, singing silently of the gloriousness of me, as we skip together down Cemetery Road.

Can I tell you a secret? This is my go-to story, whenever I fall in love. It's called 'Harlequin Valentine' and it's part of the short story collection 'Fragile Things'. So, if you're feeling a bit in love, read it, it's wonderful.

3. A.A. Milne

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I love this, it brings tears to my eyes each time I read it, perhaps because it is so true and so heart-breaking. It's about loss, it's about that awful fear that can only stem from great love – the fear of losing someone, the fear that one day, you might wake up and the person who makes your world a little brighter might be gone from it.

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Books have always been a huge part of my life and the Winnie the Pooh stories are priceless in a child's education, in my opinion, because they carry so much feeling, teach so much about love and about the life they're going to have on this earth.

4. Edgar Allan Poe

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I know, I know – what is one of the creepiest writers of all time doing on this list? Well, it just so happens that he wrote one of the most true-to-love poems that ever existed as well and judging from his words, he obviously knew a thing or two about it, so here he is.

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

The fabulous, terrifying emotion of living through another, of feeling ever-connected to that someone. I think he captures that tremendously. I highly encourage you to read the entire poem, if you don't know it.

5. Sam Shepard

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I've left the best for last. By that, I don't mean the best writer, no, that's very subjective, I believe, and while Sam was a tremendous writer, I think it really depends on the reader. But I do believe that this is the best quote on love I've ever read, the one that touched my heart most, at least.
What is particularly interesting, I think, is that this is not a quote from one of his works (though he has written some tremendous stuff on love – see Fool for Love). It's a fragment from one of his letters, in which he talks of his love for the actress Jessica Lange (they were together for some 30 years after meeting on the set of Frances).

I love this woman in a way I can’t describe & a feeling of belonging to each other that reaches across all the pain. It’s as though we’ve answered something in each other that was almost forgotten. I look back on that whole ten years in California & I see myself hunting desperately for something I wasn’t finding. I know the Work point of view is the only true one. That life is inside. That nothing outside can ever finally answer our yearning. I know that’s true but, in some way, finding Jessie has reached something inside me. A part of me feels brand new — re-awakened.

Really, what more can I say? I do hope some of these quotes have touched you, that they've meant something to you, as they have to me.