This false notion of the body as the testing ground for intimacy has long warped our understanding of what constitutes a romantic relationship. The measure of intimacy is not the quotient of friction between skin and skin, but something else entirely—something of the love and trust, the joy and ease that flow between two people as they inhabit that private world walled off from everything and everyone else.
— Maria Popova
Whatever we may mean by the word “love,” we earn the right to use it only by doing the hard work of knowing and being known.
— Maria Popova