We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder.

Most cynics are really crushed romantics: they've been hurt they're sensitive and their cynicism is a shell that's protecting this tiny dear part in them that's still alive.

I love romantic comedies. I have a deep respect for them. I think they're really difficult to write and write well.

I'm a hopeless romantic and very much the person in a relationship to go: If things are going well I'll buy the flowers remember the dates of things plan fun nights out.

I feel like you don't know if someone's equipped for a romantic relationship until they're out of their twenties.

I lived by the candlelight for two years because I couldn't afford power. It was nice and romantic at the time but if you can't afford power you're pretty broke. You endure it.

My wife was the first romantic partner who understood both American and native parts of me - not so much the positive stuff but the damage.

We don't tend to write about disease in fiction - not just teen novels but all American novels - because it doesn't fit in with our idea of the heroic romantic epic. There is room only for sacrifice heroism war politics and family struggle.

You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.

The romanticised life where all the great poetry and music and art of the world comes from is great but it requires a lot of self-indulgence.