"When you are in love, it means that the person you love is of great personal, selfish importance to you and to your life. If you were selfless, it would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person's need of you. I don't have to point out to you that no one would be flattered by, nor would accept, a concept of that kind. Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person."
-- Ayn Rand, interview in Playboy

"In relationships, if it's not 'yes,' it's 'no.'" -- Kelly O'Sullivan

"When your biggest fear is of losing people, you're all but broadcasting that you'll stay no matter what, taking whatever they dish. Which is why, if you're going to have a biggest fear, it should be of being treated like dirt. At least then, you'll sick up for yourself."
-- Carloyn Hax, "Tell Me About It" newspaper columnist

"Do you want this guy watching your back? It's not a job you want botched. And yet in all the years I've been writing this column, in all the gushing descriptions I've read of everyone's 'ones,' amid all the smarts and funnys and attractives and greats-in-bed, it's the asset most likely to be mislabeled as a liability: kindness. Is he nice to you. Are you nice to him. And does it come naturally, or only when one of you wants something? Do you seek each other out for relief, or do you take things out on each other?"
-- Carloyn Hax, "Tell Me About It" newspaper columnist