Pop-Culture Poems and Readings

Fleabag - Hot Priest’s Speech

"It turns out it's quite hard to come up with something original about love, but I've had a go. Love is awful. It’s awful. It’s painful. It’s frightening. It makes you doubt yourself, judge yourself, distance yourself from the other people in your life. It makes you selfish. It makes you creepy, makes you obsessed with your hair, makes you cruel, makes you say and do things you never thought you would do.

It’s all any of us want, and it’s hell when we get there. So no wonder it’s something we don’t want to do on our own. I was taught if we’re born with love then life is about choosing the right place to put it. People talk about that a lot, feeling right, when it feels right, it’s easy. But I’m not sure that’s true. It takes strength to know what’s right. And love isn’t something that weak people do. Being a romantic takes a hell of a lot of hope. I think what they mean is, when you find somebody that you love, it feels like hope."

Friends - Monica and Chandler’s Vows

Monica: "For so long I wondered if I would ever find my prince, my soulmate. Then three years ago, at another wedding, I turned to a friend for comfort. And instead, I found everything that I'd ever been looking for my whole life. And now here we are with our future before us, and I only want to spend it with you, my prince, my soulmate, my friend." 

Chandler: "I thought this was going to be the most difficult thing I ever had to do. But when I saw you walking down that aisle I realized how simple it was. I love you. Any surprises that come our way, it’s OK, because I will always love you. You are the person I was meant to spend the rest of my life with." 

When Harry Met Sally - Harry’s Declaration

“I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. 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.”

Stardust — Yvaine's confession

"When I see the way that mankind loves. You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and... I think I love you... I never imagined I'd know it for myself. My heart — it feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it's trying to escape because it doesn't belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I'd wish for nothing in exchange — no gifts. No goods. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine."

The Notebook — Noah's argument

"That’s what we do. We fight. You tell me when I’m being an an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you're being a pain in the ass. Which you are 99 per cent of the time. I’m not afraid of hurting your feelings. They have like a two-second rebound rate and you’re back doing the next pain in the ass thing… It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be 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.”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Spike's declaration

"When I say I love you, it’s not because I want you or because I can’t have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I’ve seen your kindness and your strength. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You’re a hell of a woman. You're the one."

Sleepless in Seattle — Sam's feelings

"It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, it just 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. It was like... magic."

Sex and the City — Carrie's poem

"His hello was the end of her endings,

Her laugh was their first step down the aisle,

His hand would be hers to hold forever,

His forever was as simple as her smile,

He said she was what was missing,

She said instantly she knew,

She was a question to be answered,

And his answer was 'I do.'"

How I Met Your Mother — Ted's speech

Love doesn't make sense. You can't logic your way into or out of it. Love is totally nonsensical. But we have to keep doing it, or else we're lost and love is dead and humanity should just pack it in. Because love is the best thing we do. I know that sounds cheesy, but it's just true... It doesn't have to make sense, to make sense."

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

‘The future belongs to hearts even more than it does to minds. Love, that is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. In the infinite, the inexhaustible is requisite.

Love participates of the soul itself. It is of the same nature. Like it, it is the divine spark; like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable. It is a point of fire that exists within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can confine, and which nothing can extinguish. We feel it burning even to the very marrow of our bones, and we see it beaming in the very depths of heaven.’

The Notebook

Poets often describe love as an emotion that we can’t control, one that overwhelms logic and common sense.

That’s what it was like for me. I didn’t plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt if you planned on falling in love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created.

For me, love like that has happened only once, and that’s why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory.

Dr. Who - The Ninth Doctor

Do you wanna come with me? ‘Cause if you do, then I should warn you – you’re gonna see all sorts of things.
Ghosts from the past. Aliens from the future. The day the Earth died in a ball of flame.

It won’t be quiet, it won’t be safe, and it won’t be calm.
But I’ll tell you what it will be: the trip of a lifetime!

Star Trek

Commander, I don’t think you can analyze love.
It’s the greatest mystery of all.
No one knows why it happens or doesn’t.
Love is a chance combination of elements.
Any one thing might be enough to keep it from igniting—a mood, a glance…A remark.
And if we could define love…predict it…it would probably lose its power.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Angel

Passion.
It is born, and though uninvited, unwelcome,
unwanted…like a cancer it takes root.
It festers. It bleeds. It scabs…
only to rupture and bleed anew.
It grows…it thrives…until it consumes.
It lives, so it must die. It lies in all of us.
Sleeping, waiting, and though unwanted, unbidden,
it will stir–open its jaws and howl.
It speaks to us, guides us. Some to despair…
it drives others to murder and others to madness.
Passion rules us all, and we obey.
What other choice do we have?
Passion is the source of our finest moments:
the joy of love, the clarity of hatred,
and the ecstasy of grief.
It hurts sometimes more than we can bare.
Passion is the source of hope and the cause of despair.
It is the source of life and the cause of death.
If we could live without passion,
maybe we’d know some kind of peace.
But we would be hollow.
Empty rooms, shuttered and dank.
Without passion, we’d be truly dead.

Brooklyn 99 - Captain Holt

"Marriage is a contract. But it’s so much more than that. Marriage is
love. It’s commitment, it’s joy, it’s understanding, it’s patience, it’s anger,
it’s reconciliation. It’s everything. It’s like oatmeal. It sustains you."

Game of Thrones

‘“As you are the moon of his life, he shall be your sun and stars.
Your love shall be as ever present as those two celestial bodies, even though they are sometimes hidden from one another’s sight.
Your love will be the guiding force that charts the course of your tomorrows, holds your world together in difficult times, and will make life itself shine bolder and brighter than we human beings have a right to dream of.”

Twilight: Breaking Dawn

“It’s an extraordinary thing to meet someone who you can bare your soul to, and who will accept you for what you are. I’ve been waiting, what seems like a very long time, to get beyond what I am. And now…I feel like I can finally begin…No measure of time with you will be long enough. But let’s start with forever.”

The Greatest Adventure – A Hobbit’s Tale

“The greatest adventure is what lies ahead. Today and tomorrow are yet to be said. The chances, the changes are all yours to make. The mold of your life is in your hands to break.”