Love notes are secret. They’re wrapped up with a sandwich in the lunchbox. They’re tied with ribbon and hidden in a chest in the attic. They’re tucked under nighties in a drawer, a little crumpled and cracked from being read again and again.
Today, September 26, is Love Note Day. There’s no better day to write a few lines that may be cherished—who knows?—forever.
Literature loves the love note, and authors’ correspondence is steamy and romantic. Draw your inspiration from these examples from well-loved novels:
"I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed."
Possession, A.S. Bryant
“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.”
Persuasion, Jane Austen
“You are scored on my heart, Clark. You were from the first day you walked in, with your ridiculous clothes and your bad jokes and your complete inability to ever hide a single thing you felt.”
Me Before You, Jojo Moyes
“Sometimes I can’t even listen to what you’re saying,” he writes. “All I can do is watch your mouth. I watch your lips and I think about kissing you, when I’m alone at night.”
Hard Time, Cara McKenna
“All my life I thought that the story was over when the hero and heroine were safely engaged—after all, what’s good enough for Jane Austen ought to be good enough for anyone. But it’s a lie. The story is about to begin, and every day will be a new piece of the plot.”
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows