Favorite Romantic Quotes

UF vs. PNR

Hi Everyone,

Ever wonder what makes one romantic scene work and another fail?

There are guidelines for writing great romantic dialog, no matter what the genre. They include evoking strong emotions other than love, setting a unique background, keeping characters true to themselves, not going 'purple' with excessively flowery prose, and most importantly, the writing romance that isn't gratuitous but propels the story forward.

Even with all that, you still need great lines.

I've made a list of some of my favourite. Which light you up? Turn you off?

Memorable Romantic Moments

Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears. "After all this time?"
"Always...”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

He drew me into his arms. It was like the pull of the sea. Kind. Irresistible. Swimming …
― Tanith Lee, The Silver Metal Lover

Her pragmatic preternatural self assessed the situation and realized that she could definitely learn to love the taste of him …
―  Gail Carriger, Souless

“So you do believe in... true love?" she whispered.
I took a deep breath, "I think I have to," I said, blinking back tears. "Without it, we're all going nowhere.”
― Juliet Marillier, Wildwood Dancing

He gave me that lazy smile that had always had the power to make my heart beat faster. I was dismayed to see that it still worked.”
― Patricia Briggs, Moon Called

“I lean forward so my mouth is inches away from the perfect shell of his ear. The smell of him – freshly cut grass and mint – is addictive. …I pull back. Otherwise I won’t be able to stop myself from kissing his neck. I don’t know what’s wrong with me …
― Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

“You make me want things I can't have.”
― Kendare Blake, Anna Dressed in Blood

Eric & Sookie Fancy in Black by JamieRose89

“Eric was holding my hands, and I was digging my nails into him like we were doing something else. He won't mind, I though, as I realized I'd drawn blood. And sure enough, he didn't. "Let go," he advised me, and I loosened my grip on his hands. "No, not of me," he said smiling. "You can hold on to me as long as you want.”
― Charlaine Harris, Club Dead

“I stood on my toes and stole a soft kiss from his lips. "Surprise attack," I said.
Sam leaned down and kissed me back, his mouth lingering on mine, teeth grazing my lower lip, making me shiver. "Surprise attack back."
"Sneaky," I said, my voice breathier than I intended.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver

“I’m watching her talk. Watching her jaw move and collecting her words one by one as they spill from her lips. I don’t deserve them. Her warm memories. I’d like to paint them over the bare plaster walls of my soul, but everything I paint seems to peel.”
—Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

“Do you think I’ll ever get better at this? That my heart might someday stop trying to jump out of my chest whenever you touch me?” Stephenie Meyers – Twilight

“Sleep,” he says. “I'll fight the bad dreams off if they come to get you.”
“With what?”
“My bare hands, obviously.”
― Veronica Roth, Insurgent 

She hugged me a full five seconds longer than my intimacy issues could stand and whispered in my ear. ‘Love you.’
Love you, too. I did, without a doubt, but I couldn’t get the sounds out of my throat for her to hear, so they stayed in my head.
― Kim Falconer, The Blood in the Beginning

"I came back to find you," Akiva said. "I don't know why. Karou. Karou. I don't know why… Just to find you and be in the world that you're in..."
—Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke and Bone

"I know you write poetry and I know about the raven on your necklace and I know you love orange soda and your grandma and Milk Duds mixed into your popcorn." For a second, I thought she might smile.
"That's hardly anything," [she said].
"It's a start."
— Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl - Beautiful Creatures

“…I tried not to look in his eyes, at the person deep inside who had revealed so much of himself to me, the person I had fallen in love with when I wasn’t paying attention ... Deeply. Madly. And it was making it hard to breathe.”
— Merrie Destefano, Lost Girls

"Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while."
—William Goldman, Princess Bride

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
—John Green, The Fault is in our Stars

What are some of your favorite romantic scenes in books, or films? Feel free to share them in the comments.
xxKim

Kim Falconer's latest release is out now - The Blood in the Beginning - and Ava Sykes Novel. Find this novel in a store near you.

You can also learn more about Kim at AvaSykes.com, the 11th House Blog, and on FaceBook and Twitter.  Or on GoodVibeAstrology.com

She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month and runs Save the Day Writer's Community on Facebook. Check out her daily Astro-LOA Flash horoscopes on Facebook. 

Warm Bodies

Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich
in Warm Bodies Feb 2013

Why I thought zombies made rotten lovers . . .

Lao Tzu said character is destiny and it holds true in fiction as well as ‘real’ life. How characters think, what informed their past, what hopes excite them, as well as their physicality, combine to create the next twist or turn in the story. So how can a mindless, flesh eating zombie EVER be a love interest? Paranomal hero can, but zombies NO!

That's what I used to think. I said in interviews that it was impossible to write a ‘zombie romance’. I even stated something along the lines of  You’ll never see a zombie romance! It could never work.

Why?

No matter how brilliant the plot or true the love, characters have to have a potency of their own, and it's got to be driving, charismatic. They must grow, change, exhibit emotions (or repress them), have likes and dislikes, flaws and attributes. Basically, they have to be ‘real’ people that the reader, or the viewer, can relate to. If they don’t feel alive they might as well be, you guessed it, zombies, and that’s not going to make anyone’s’ heart throb, or so I thought.

Then I picked up Warm Bodies.

How in the world does one bring a zombie to life? Isaac Marion has the answer. You give them heart, or at least, a vestige of one. Once that awakens, a whole new world unfolds, where even a zombie can fall in love. Warm Bodies, a paranormal romance/horror/thriller, is the living proof. zombies don’t always make rotten lovers.

Warm Bodies by
Isaac Marion

It might also be proof of a shift in our collective unconscious. I've talked before about vampires and other paranormal ‘monsters’ as 'expression of the collective shadow', and how our shifting relationship to these ‘demons’ in film and literature reflects a shift in our consciousness as we form a new relationship to that ‘shadow.’  (see Evolution of the Vampire Revisited) Falling for a zombie is definitely taking up a lot of new file space in my research. This thesis just keeps expanding! Bottom line, as a species, we are opening up, connecting with our dark side and transforming it through love.

Whether this book and film are new trend in paranormal romance, (is that possible?) or a statement about evolving human consciousness, Warm Bodies is a fun read! It’s a story about R, a young man in a state of existential crisis because he’s not alive, and not really dead. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic USA where R has no memories, until he eats someone's. His growth arc is huge!

When the memories in one of his victim’s brains affect him, he finds himself attracted to, rescuing, befriending and eventually falling in love with the dead boy’s still living-girlfriend. Julie (Australia’s own Teresa Palmer) is a blast of colour in the dreary and grey landscape that is the “life” of the un-living. Their tense, awkward and strangely sweet relationship develops into something that will not only transform R, but his fellow zombies . . .  Warm Bodies the film 2013



It appears love is infectious after all!


Has anyone seen the film? Read the book? Let’s compare notes!


Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, YA and epic science fantasy novels.

You can find out more about Kim at kimfalconer.com or on The 11th House Blog. She posts here at the SuperntrlUnderg on the 16th of every month. Her latest release is Supernatural Underground: Vampires Gone Wild.