This Is What It Feels Like To Fall In Love With Your Forever Person

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid…”

— Neil Gaiman, amazon.com

“I cared about her as a person, as a soul, and I wanted to fuck her, and that was the recipe for something much worse than carnal sin. It was a recipe for falling in love.”

— Sierra Simone, amazon.com

“She wasn't exactly sure when it happened. Or even when it started. All she knew for sure was that right here and now, she was falling hard and she could only pray that he was feeling the same way.”

— Nicholas Sparks, amazon.com

“True love is not practical. True love doesn’t always follow the rules. When you are truly in love, you can lose your mind over it.”

— Kate McGahan, amazon.com

“He makes me want to knock down all the walls I’ve put up and let him inside. And it scares the shit out of me.”

— Kandi Steiner, amazon.com

“Falling in love is more than infatuation. It is the need to feel whole, to feel safe, to be healed, to join together with someone, heart and soul.”

— Michael R. French, amazon.com

“There's not protocol for falling in love with someone. There's no game plan to tell you when it's appropriate to do certain things, say other things.”

— Lori L. Otto, amazon.com

“You know you’re in love the moment you can touch the stars without reaching.”

— Melisa M. Hamling, amazon.com

“You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast.”

— Catherynne M. Valente, amazon.com

“It’s hard to say how it happens. How all of the bits of me – even the broken ones – start to tumble. I think it’s my toes that go first. Next – my legs and the hallow spaces behind my ribs. And then my arms all the way down through my wrist bones to the tips of my fingers. My lips part and I realize…”

— Autumn Doughton, amazon.com

“It's more like you meet someone, and you fall in love, and you hope that that person is the one — and then at some point, you have to put down your chips. You just have to make a commitment and hope that you're right.”

— Rainbow Rowell, amazon.com

“Falling in love slowly is like awakening one morning to find that the sun has risen in the west.”

— Kim Wright, amazon.com

“I remembered something my dad once wrote me about falling in love. He said the phrase was apt because falling is exactly what it can feel like, as if you've finally allowed yourself to let go of some safety bar you didn't even know you were clinging to, and suddenly you find yourself tumbling toward…”

— Mark Peter Hughes, amazon.com

“Falling in love is a subtle process, a connection sparked by attraction, tested by compatibility, and forged by memory.”

— Jay Bell, amazon.com

“Love is like an undertow. You can fight it with every ounce of energy you have; it is far more powerful than you, and it inevitably sweeps you under. Once love takes hold, it remains. Love is what remains when life finds its ending. It is the bridge that connects where we have been, where we now res…”

— Nancy Ann Healy, amazon.com

“The greatest wonderful feeling is falling in love.”

— Lailah Gifty Akita, amazon.com

“Falling in love is like falling from a high cliff into a warm silky sea, the falling is like flying and the landing is like a glimpse of the divine.”

— Chloe Thurlow, amazon.com

“Love grows with every returned smile, every second of communal silence and every word exchanged. Unconditional love is built and when it’s finished nothing destroys it.”

— Sarah Noffke, amazon.com

“It’s a lot like a roller coaster. There are lots of twists and turns, and some of the hills are a bit scary, but you stay on the ride just to feel the thrill of that fall again.”

— Nancy Ann Healy, amazon.com

“You don't feel yourself falling in love, like it's a journey, a process; on the contrary, it hits you like a sudden ague, a fever, the realization that your life will never be the same again.”

— Chloe Thurlow, amazon.com

“The term fell in love is apt, because it implies there is pain in the discovery. I didn’t land softly in love.”

— N.B. Roberts, amazon.com

“Love is the color of spring sunshine muted through old windows. Love has a taste, a texture - dark chocolate with pistachios; a sound - wind chimes echoing from a distant hill; a rhythm - the tango, obviously.”

— Chloe Thurlow, amazon.com

“It’s not called ‘falling in love’ for no reason. It’s scary! It’s like jumping out of a plane with no parachute. Or bungee-jumping without your cord attached. Or hang-gliding with only one wing.”

— Andrea Lochen, amazon.com

“You were falling for me, and I was falling for you, and we were falling together into the land of the fallen.”

— Lauren Blakely, amazon.com

“When you start to fall, don't try to talk yourself out of it. The right man will be there at the bottom, to catch you.”

— Julie Johnson, amazon.com

“You can fall in love again with someone you're already in love with. It's like waking from a dream within a dream and finding another layer, the colors more vivid, the light more lucid, the fantasy more real. Being in love is an endless loop of waking to reverie.”

— Leah Raeder, amazon.com

“Love can be a choice as much as an accident.”

— Carol Cassella, amazon.com

“When I'm around you, it's like every dream I've ever had is standing right in front of me.”

— Courtney Giardina, amazon.com

“Falling in love is sudden, easy, and fun. It’s like a child going down a playground slide. Falling out of love is slow, difficult, and painful. It’s like watching a child die of cancer.”

— Jayden Hunter, amazon.com

“I feel like real love should take time, or at least, more time than this. I've been trying to make my head rule my actions, when my heart has so obviously taken over, but I feel how I feel, and I know it's not going away.”

— R.K. Lilley, amazon.com