Best Of Marianne Power's "Love Me"

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from Love Me: One Woman's Search for a Different Happy Ever After by Marianne Power 

I remembered a piece of advice Jan had given one of the group: Don't shut yourself down until you meet the right guy, because you don't know when that's going to be. In the meantime, keep your heart open to people. Lean in to pleasure. Take lovers, go on dates, meet different people, keep your heart open... but always go slowly enough that any hurt you experience is not insurmountable. Don't jump in.

Take your time. Lean on your girlfriends. Put your first intimacy first - always.

p. 233

I was needy. I needed people to like me. I needed them to approve of me. I needed to be wanted and considered good.

I needed men to fancy me so that I felt attractive.

p. 221

If you're a single woman, friendship is presented as a consolation prize. But friendship isn't a consolation prize. For me, it had been the real thing. I'd read somewhere that the word friend and 'free came from the same origin. That made sense. The freedom of friendship was what worked for me.

There was no contract, just a choice every day to stay in each other's lives.

p.293

I thought of the pressure we put on The One to be a certain way - to look a certain way, act a certain way. I thought of the shopping list I'd written at New Year. I never wrote these kinds of lists for friends. I didn't have an idea of what a best friend' needed to look like. We let each other be who we were, without trying to make the other fit into any mould. We adored, endured and forgave each other.

p. 293

Imagine telling men that the gateway to their self-worth was to love their bodies... it would be ridiculous. Men are so much more than just their bodies, that goes without saying.

Why shouldn't it go without saying for us too?

p. 322