Love means not ever having to say you’re sorry.
Author Erich Segal was born on June 16, 1937.
Ah, nostalgia! Who else remembers the days when Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal were the icons of Hollywood’s cult of romantic love? If one could just find a love like the love in Love Story, it would be possible to live happily ever after.
Author Lars Walker blogging at Brandywine Books has some interesting remarks on America’s National Religion of Romantic Love. Although I am very happily married, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
“Everyone who has come near to salvation in the religion of Romantic Love discovers that he is not in fact among the Elect. That Beloved who seemed to be all he could dream of turns out to be less than anticipated (even in good marriages). The changes in himself that the lover expected to see don’t all appear either. He finds himself in the end one-half of an ordinary couple, neither especially beautiful nor especially romantic nor any longer young. And in the end there’s death for all involved.”
I don’t want to spoil a good movie, but Love Story doesn’t provide salvation for any of its characters either. Oh, and love means asking for and accepting forgiveness many, many times over the course of a lifetime.
Movie Trivia Quiz: What post-Love Story movie includes this conversation, and who played Howard and Judy?
Judy: Love means never having to say you’re sorry.
Howard: That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.
Oh, and by the way, Erich Segal said that the character of Oliver Barrett IV was based on Al Gore and his Harvard roomate, Tommy Lee Jones. But Tommy Lee Jones had a small part in the movie, not Al Gore.
Love the Princess Bride reference in the title :o)
I can not place the Howard and Judy quote altough I have heard it!
Donna
My family’s cult movie!!!! “What’s Up, Doc”, starring Ryan O’Neal and Barbra Streisand, has long been a great favorite–we are all fully capable of quoting the entire film from memory. Many of the lines are a common part of our conversations– “Do you have a pencil dahling?” “There’s a person named Eunice?!?” “You’re gonna need an awful big glass of water to get that down.” “I don’t know who HE is, but SHE is definitely not who she says she is.” “I think I wanna skip this part and move on.” Hee hee hee!