There is no word in our language which has been so much misused and prostituted as the word <i>love</i>. It has been preached by those who were ready to condone every cruelty if it served their purpose; it has been used as a disguise under which to force people into sacrificing their own happiness, into submitting their whole self to those who profited from this surrender. [...] It has been made so empty that for many people love may mean no more than that two people have lived together for twenty years just without fighting more often than once a week.

Si no es amor, ¿qué es esto que yo siento? Mas si es amor, por Dios, ¿qué cosa y cuál? Si es buena, ¿por qué es áspera y mortal? Si mala, ¿por qué es dulce su tormento?

Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

Next to ‘God’, ‘love’ is the word most mangled in every language.

¿Y qué es el amor? ¿Quién definió el amor? Amor definido deja de serlo...

El amor es un veneno. Un veneno dulce, sí, pero un veneno que mata.

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

Sucede con el amor lo que con los fantasmas; todo el mundo habla de ellos pero pocas personas los han visto

Esta es la clave del sentido de la vida; amor es preocuparse por otro:flor, estrella,volcán,hombre...es sentirse responsable por otro

Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap.

El amor es un castigo. Somos castigados por no haber podido quedarnos solos.

Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.

El amor-fantasía, es mucho mejor que el amor-realidad.

But it seems to me that a man cannot and ought not to say that he loves, he said. Why not? I asked. Because it will always be a lie. As though it were a strange sort of discovery that someone is in love! Just as if, as soon as he said that, something went snap-bang - he loves. Just as if, when he utters that word, something extraordinary is bound to happen, with signs and portents, and all the cannons firing at once. It seems to me, he went on, that people who solemnly utter those words, 'I love you,' either deceive themselves, or what's still worse, deceive others.