GARY CHAPMAN

Love is reaching out to try to get to the other person.

I think that in today's world, by nature, we are all self-centered. And that often leads to selfishness.

I think people desperately want to feel love.

I have been doing marriage counseling for about 15 years and I realized that what makes one person feel loved, doesn't make another person feel loved.

In reality, relationships that are successful tend to take the attitude, 'How can I help you?' 'How can I enrich your life?' 'How can I be a better husband to you,' if it's a marriage.

It was God's idea to make us male and female. And God's the one that instituted marriage.

It is universal to give gifts as an expression of love. My academic background is anthropology, the study of cultures. We have never discovered a culture where gift-giving is not an expression of love.

The desire for romantic love in marriage is deeply rooted in our psychological makeup.

When you're married, the person you would most like to love you is your spouse. And if you feel loved by your spouse, the world looks bright. But if the love tank is empty, and you don't feel loved by your spouse, the world begins to look dark.

Sex was invented by God.

I remember, in the early days of my marriage, I thought I married the wrong person. We held to our own ideas of what the other should be and do, but neither of us lived up to those expectations.

I wish I'd known that apologizing is a sign of strength. I had the impression that if you apologize, it's a sign of weakness. I kind of picked up the message from my father, 'Real men don't apologize. You just do your best, and if you happen to hurt some people, that's their fault. You just go on. Don't apologize. That's a sign of weakness.'

I thought the whole thing was you fall in love with somebody, and it's so wonderful, and it's so euphoric, and it's going to be that way forever. Nobody told me that two years after you fall in love, you're going to come down off the euphoria.

If you are sitting on the couch with the TV off, and you are looking into each other's eyes and talking, that is quality time - so is taking a walk or going out to eat, so long as you are communicating with each other.

The fastest way to have a loving, supportive, understanding spouse is to become a loving, supportive, understanding spouse.

You need to listen to your friends when they point out things about the person you're in love with. Listen to them, because they see what you can't see right now, but you'll see it later.

One of the things I say is, 'You cannot control your spouse, but you can influence your spouse.' And one of the ways to influence your spouse is to make sure you are meeting their need for love.

We can't determine our emotions, but we can choose our attitudes and actions.

That is the idea that good Christians don't talk about sex, at least not out loud, and certainly not in the church. I want to say that both of those ideas are fallacious.

The human race could not go on without reproduction, and marriage creates the most secure environment in which to raise children.

As a senior in high school, I had a strong sense that God wanted me in some kind of ministry.

For a long time, I have been wanting to write a book for singles that would help them in the dating process and in getting ready for marriage. Most of my writing, I've written to couples who are already married, because I've been doing marriage counseling for 35 years.

Love is a spiritual grace. We learn it from God.

There were only two things I knew in a Christian framework that I could do. One would be the pastor of a church, the other would be a missionary. I didn't particularly like snakes, so I decided I should probably be a pastor.

If you want to improve a relationship, it's not that you demand your spouse to change. You have to ask, 'Where did I fail in this relationship?'