Centerpiece Readings

I've hunted down my books and browsed the pages for memorable readings about love, marriage and relationship. Here are what I've come up with so far:

LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE
Laura Esquivel

Tenderly, Pedro touched his cheek to Tita's, and his hand on her waist felt hotter than ever.

“Do you remember when we heard this song for the first time?”

“I'll never forget.”

“I couldn't sleep that night, thinking about asking for your hand right then. I didn't know that it would take twenty-two years before I would ask you to be my wife.”

“Are you asking me seriously?”

“Of course. I don't want to die without making you mine. I have always dreamed of walking with you into a church full of white flowers, and you the most beautiful of them all.


THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN
Mitch Albom

LOVE, LIKE RAIN, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes, under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots, keeping itself alive.


MORNING GLORY
LaVyrle Spencer

“Good...good. Now the times when I want you to remember that are the times when you'll be at cross purposes --- and nobody who remains married for thirty-two, or fifty-two or even two years can avoid them. But disagreements can become arguments, then battles, then wars, unless you learn to compromise. It's the wars you'll have to avoid, and you do that by remembering what you've just told me. That you love each other. All right?” He waited.

“Yessir,” they replied in unison.

“Compromise is the cornerstone of marriage. Can you work things out and reach compromises instead of giving way to anger?”

“Yessir.”

“Yessir.” Eleanor's eyes couldn't quite meet the judge's as she remembered the egg running down Will's face. Then honesty got the best of her and she added, “I'll try real hard.”