Let’s start with something related to Jane Austen. You’ve Got Mail is a modern day Pride and Prejudice, or so we are led to believe. “I wanted it to be you, I wanted it to be you so badly.”

This one always makes me cry—from The Notebook. “So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be really hard. We’re gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day.”

“To me, you are perfect,” from Love Actually is one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Is Mark’s profession of love to Juliet, his best friend’s wife, sweet or problematic? As a viewer, you do not wish see Kiera Knightley’s character break up her marriage; yet, . . .

Another heartbreaker of a tale is Casablanca. Do you recall: “Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last time.”

This one from The Princess Bride is romantic in an odd sort of way: “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”

I always repeat these lines when I rewatch When Harry Met Sally. “I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

This movie is so sad. Yet, as I have a signed poster from Keira Knightley and James Mcavoy in Atonement hanging on my wall, I had to include this one. “I will return. I will find you. Love you. Marry you. And live without shame.”

All Austen fans can likely recognize this scene from Bridget Jones’s Diary. “No, I like you very much. Just as you are.”

I have not watched Shakespeare in Love in a VERY long time, but, perhaps, I should revisit it. “You will never age for me, nor fade, nor die.”

As I have gotten older, these words from On Golden Pond between Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda have taken on a more poignant response.  “Listen to me, mister. You’re my knight in shining armor. Don’t you forget it.” 

This quote from Forrest Gump speak of an undying love—a love that lasts beyond the grave. “I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental—like on a breeze—but I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both is happening at the same time. I miss you, Jenny. If there’s anything you need, I won’t be far away.”

This quote from The Wedding Date is a keeper. “I think I’d miss you even if we’d never met.”

Taming of the Shrew is one of my favorite Shakespeare’s plays, so, naturally, I would adore a young Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger in the modern day roles of Catarina and Petruchio. I absolutely stop all I am doing to watch Heath singing “You’re Just to Good to Be True” with the marching band on the football field. Cracks me up every time. This is the poem Julia’s character Kat right before the end of 10 Things I Hate About You.

“I hate the way you talk to me and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate the way you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sic; it even makes me rhyme.

I hate it, I hate the way you’re always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call.

But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.”

From Sleepless in Seattle, we come across Tom Hanks’s description of falling in love with his first wife. The words make Meg Ryan’s character sigh, for she wants the same type of love. The description makes most women sigh. “It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together … and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home. .. only to no home I’d ever known … I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like … magic.”

Moulin Rouge had its quirky moments, but the love story holds true. “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.”

Okay, I will admit it. I am a sucker for anything in which Robert Redford appears. Since his Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I have watched nearly everything in which he has a appeared. Although Up Close and Personal does not have the ending I would like, it has some great lines, such as:

Tally Atwater: Do you want to be with me?

Warren Justice: So much it hurts.

(and)

Tally: When I asked you how long you could stay and you said, ‘Long enough,’ how long is that? When we’re not together…

Warren: … Everything shuts down.

(and)

Warren Justice: Every day we have is one more than we deserve.

Any list of romance quotes must have something from Julia Roberts. I love Notting Hill. I have seen it often enough to repeat the lives along with the actors. “I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”

Again, the movie does not need to start out as a romance to have romantic elements. Gone With the Wind has more tales than the romance between Rhett and Scarlet, most of them very serious issues, but I adore this line:  “You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.”

Again, this quote comes from an nontraditional love story, City of Angels. “I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss of her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it. One.”

As I create this list, I am beginning to think I adore tearjerker movies. The last scenes of the blockbuster Titanic gave us this line: “Winning that ticket, Rose, was the best thing that ever happened to me… it brought me to you.”

In Serendipity, it seems the whole universe is keeping Sara and Jonathan apart, but this quote says otherwise: “It’s like in that moment the whole universe existed just to bring us together.”

I must include something with a Southern twang. This quote from the end of Sweet Home Alabama will fill the slot perfectly. “You’re the first boy I ever kissed, Jake, and I want you to be the last.”

As is only fitting, I must end my list with a couple of Austen favorites. This first comes from Sense and Sensibility, part of Edward’s proposal to Eleanor. “I’ve come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is, and always will be, yours.” 

And although the quote below is not found in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, it signifies how Mr. Darcy has come to love Elizabeth Bennet: You must know… surely, you must know it was all for you. You are too generous to trifle with me. I believe you spoke with my aunt last night, and it has taught me to hope as I’d scarcely allowed myself before. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love–I love–I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.

All right, dear readers. Hit me with some of your favorites. I would love to know which romance plots struck a chord with you. Which romances do you mean to watch for Valentine’s Day?