55 Most Romantic Quotes About Love in Books, Literature, Poetry & Prose

Whether you’re total bookworms planning a celebration in a dreamy library wedding venue, or you’re simply searching for the perfect words to capture how you feel, romantic quotes from literature can add a timeless touch to your big day.

From sweeping declarations in classic novels to heartfelt lines from modern stories, these quotes about love in books have long captured the magic of falling in love in ways that feel unforgettable.

To help inspire you, we’ve gathered some of the most beautiful love quotes from books – including everything from classic romantic quotes to moving lines from poetry, plays and contemporary novels. These literary love quotes are perfect for couples who want their wedding to feel meaningful, romantic and just a little bit poetic.

Why not include your favourite quote on your wedding stationery, weave a line into your vows or speech, or even save a few to use in future anniversary cards? After all, sometimes the most powerful way to say “I love you” is with words that have already stood the test of time.

55 Quotes About Love in Books

Romantic quotes from literature can be found everywhere, from timeless plays and poetry to beloved novels and modern stories. For centuries, writers have captured the feeling of falling in love with words that are beautiful, moving and often impossible to improve on. It’s no surprise that love quotes from books have become a popular source of inspiration for weddings.

If you’re wondering how literary love quotes can fit into your big day, the truth is there are plenty of creative ways to use them. Whether you’re writing a best man speech, adding personal touches to your stationery or coming up with the right quote for a wedding card, the right quote can instantly add meaning and romance.

For example, many couples include romantic quotes from literature in their wedding speeches or toasts. Ending a speech with a thoughtful line from a favourite novel or poem can be the perfect way to express your feelings, especially when some of the world’s greatest writers have already said it so beautifully.

You could also feature love quotes from books on your wedding invitations or stationery. Since invitations are the first glimpse guests get of your big day, adding a meaningful quote is a lovely way to set a romantic tone from the start.

If you’d prefer something timeless, there are plenty of classic romantic quotes from famous novels and poems that work beautifully in vows, readings or speeches. Or, if you want to keep things light-hearted, you might choose a witty or playful line from literature to bring a smile to your guests’ faces.

With so many beautiful literary love quotes to choose from, we’ve rounded up 55 of our favourites from novels, poems and plays. Whether you’re searching for classic romantic quotes or memorable love quotes from books, you’ll find plenty of inspiration below.

Use the links to jump straight to your favourite section, and discover some of the most romantic quotes from literature of all time.

• Literary Love Quotes in Classic Books
• Literary Love Quotes in Contemporary Books
• Literary Love Quotes From Poetry
• Literary Love Quotes From Plays
• Quotes About Love: Expert Tips

Literary Love Quotes in Classic Books

• "We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright" - A Moveable Feast, Earnest Hemingway
• “You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.” - Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell 
• “When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!” - Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
• “What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life–to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?” - Adam Bede, George Eliot
• “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.” - Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
• “To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.” - Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
• “You and I, it’s as though we have been taught to kiss in heaven and sent down to earth together, to see if we know what we were taught.” - Dr Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
• “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
• “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” - Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
• “Each time you happen to me all over again.” - The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
• “And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy.” - The Symposium, Plato
• “He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.” - The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
• “It has made me better loving you … it has made me wiser, and easier, and brighter. I used to want a great many things before, and to be angry that I did not have them. Theoretically, I was satisfied. I flattered myself that I had limited my wants. But I was subject to irritation; I used to have morbid sterile hateful fits of hunger, of desire. Now I really am satisfied, because I can’t think of anything better.” - The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
• “You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.” The White Company – Arthur Conan Doyle
• “The winds were warm about us, the whole earth seemed the wealthier for our love.” - The Amber Gods, Harriet Prescott Spofford
• “I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare – there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.” - Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
• “Do I love you? My god, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.” - The Princess Bride, William Goldman
• “I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.” - Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
• “Why, darling, I don’t live at all when I’m not with you.” - A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

Literary Love Quotes in Contemporary Books

• “You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute.” - For One More Day, Mitch Albom
• “I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.” - The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks
• “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.” - Winnie the Pooh , A. A. Milne
• “Lying under such a myriad of stars. The sea’s black horizon. He rose and walked out and stood barefoot in the sand and watched the pale surf appear all down the shore and roll and crash and darken again. When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said if he were God he would have made the world just so and no different.” - The Road, Cormac McCarthy
• “If I were to live a thousand years, I would belong to you for all of them. If we were to live a thousand lives, I would want to make you mine in each one.” - The Evolution of Mara Dyer, Michelle Hodkin
• “I like myself better when I’m with you.” - Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom
• “I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life.” - Atonement, Ian McEwan
• “Always.” - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling

Literary Love Quotes From Poetry

• “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.” - Rabbi Ben Ezra, Robert Browning
• “He was my North, my South, my East and West, my working week and my Sunday rest.” - Stop All the Clocks, W. H. Auden
• “Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care; But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.” - The Clod and the Pebble, William Blake
• “We loved with a love that was more than love.” - Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe
• "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight." - Sonnet 43, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• "Love is like the wild rose-brair, Friendship like the holly-tree - The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, but which will bloom most constantly?" - Love and Friendship, Emily Bronte
• "Love, like a mountain-wind upon an oak, Falling upon me, shakes me leaf and bough" - Love, Sappho
• "My true-love hath my heart and I have his" - My True Love Hath My Heart, Sir Phillip Sydney
• "I wish I could remember that first day, first hour, first moment of your meeting me" - The First Day, Christina Rossetti
• “I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart).” - I carry your heart with me, E. E. Cummings
• “Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips.” - Prometheus Unbound, Percy Bysshe Shelley
• “But I love your feet only because they walked upon the earth and upon the wind and upon the waters, until they found me.” - Your Feet, Pablo Neruda
• “When you are old and grey and full of sleep… how many loved your moments of glad grace, and loved your beauty with love false or true.” - When You Are Old, W. B. Yeats
• “I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea.” - I Would Live in Your Love, Sara Teasdale

Literary Love Quotes From Plays

• “Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips.”­ - Prometheus Unbound, Percy Bysshe Shelley
• “Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.” - Hamlet, William Shakespeare
• “Who, being loved, is poor?” - A Woman of No Importance, Oscar Wilde
• “I do love nothing in the world so well as you – is not that strange?” - Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare
• "It's no trick loving somebody at their best. Love is loving them at their worst." - The Real Thing, Tom Stoppard
• "This is what it is to love an artist: the moon is always rising above your house.,, Inside his head there is always something more beautiful." - Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl
• "Then in the spring something happened to me. Yes, I remember. I fell in love." - Long Day's Journey into Night, Eugene O'Neill
• "You'll find, my friend, that what you love will take you places you never dreamed you'd go." - Angels in America, Tony Kushner
• "One should be able to have the man one loves." - The Normal Heart & The Destiny of Me, Larry Kramer
• “If music be the food of love, play on.” - Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare
• “Hear my soul speak: the very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service.” - The Tempest, William Shakespeare
• “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” - A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare
• “Take me as I am, whoever I am.” - The Winter’s Tale, William Shakespeare
• “Where there is great love there are always miracles.” - The Dybbuk, S. Ansky

Quotes About Love: Expert Tips

If you’re still searching for the perfect words, our FAQs below answer some of the most common questions about romantic quotes from literature, including where to find the best love quotes from books and which lines work beautifully for weddings.

From timeless classic romantic quotes to modern literary love quotes, here’s everything you need to know before choosing the perfect quote for your big day.

Quotes About Love: Best Romantic Quotes From Books

Some of the best romantic quotes from books are the ones that perfectly capture the depth and beauty of love in just a few words. From sweeping declarations in classic novels to heartfelt lines in contemporary stories, love quotes from books have a way of expressing feelings that are sometimes difficult to put into words.

Many couples gravitate towards classic romantic quotes from authors such as Jane Austen, Emily Brontë and F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose timeless stories are filled with unforgettable declarations of love. However, modern novels also offer plenty of beautiful literary love quotes that feel just as meaningful for today’s couples.

Ultimately, the best romantic quotes from literature are the ones that resonate with your relationship, whether they come from a beloved childhood book, a novel you both adore, or a line that simply captures how you feel about each other.

Quotes About Love: Shakespeare vs Modern Literature Quotes

When it comes to romantic quotes from literature, couples often find themselves choosing between timeless Shakespearean lines and more modern love quotes from books.

Shakespeare’s plays are filled with some of the most famous classic romantic quotes ever written. His words have been used in wedding readings, speeches and vows for centuries, thanks to their poetic language and dramatic expressions of love.

Modern literature, on the other hand, can offer literary love quotes that feel more contemporary and relatable. Quotes from newer novels often use simpler language and reflect modern relationships, making them a great choice if you want something meaningful but easy to understand for your guests.

Both options can work beautifully at a wedding, it simply depends whether you prefer the timeless elegance of Shakespeare or the fresh perspective found in modern love quotes from books.

Quotes About Love: Quotes Suitable for Weddings

Many romantic quotes from literature work perfectly for weddings because they capture the joy, commitment and emotion of falling in love. Whether you’re planning your vows, writing a speech or choosing a ceremony reading, literary love quotes can add a thoughtful and romantic touch to your day.

Some couples choose classic romantic quotes from well-known novels or poems for their ceremony readings, while others include love quotes from books in wedding invitations, signage or table stationery. A beautifully chosen quote can even be used to end a wedding speech or toast on a memorable note.

The most suitable romantic quotes from literature for weddings are those that feel personal and meaningful to you. Whether you opt for something poetic, heartfelt or even slightly humorous, the right line from a favourite book can help make your celebration feel even more special.

If you’re searching for even more quote-spiration, what about reading our round up of the best Disney quotes for wedding readings?