Show how much you care with love quotes from Maya Angelou, Jay Z and more.

“I Love You“: Those three little words can take weeks, months or even years to say – no matter how much you care about someone. You’ve seen it done in the movies, on TV shows, in books and you’ve even uttered it in past relationships. But when it comes to saying it with someone new, it can feel just like the first time. Is it too early? Too late? The right time? The right setting? Will they say it back?

It’s also three of the most beautiful words a person can utter or hear.

We dug around for 20 meaningful love quotes from poems, books, movies and songs that are just as powerful as the beautiful phrase itself.

1. “Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.'” – Erich Fromm

2. “I love you so, But why I love you, I’ll never know.” Jay Z, Why I Love You

3. “If I love you, what business is it of yours?” -. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

4. “I love you, with no beginning, no end. I love you as you have become an extra necessary organ in my body. I love you as only a girl could love a boy. Without fear. Without expectations. Wanting nothing in return, except that you allow me to keep you here in my heart, that I may always know your strength, your eyes, and your spirit that gave me freedom and let me fly.” – Coco J. Ginger

5. “I love you, and I will love you until I die, and if there’s a life after that, I’ll love you then.” – Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

6. “Love is too weak a word for what I feel. I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F’s, yes I have to invent, of course I do, don’t you think I do?” – Alvy (Woody Allen) to Annie (Diane Keaton) in Annie Hall

7. “I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.” – Roy Croft

8. “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way.” – Pablo Neruda

9. “You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love…I love…I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.” – Darcy (Matthew MacFadyen) to Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) in Pride and Prejudice

10. “When I saw you, I was afraid to meet you. When I met you I was afraid to kiss you. When I kissed you, I was afraid to love you. Now that I love you, I am afraid to lose you.”-Anonymous

11. “I do not trust people who don’t love themselves and yet tell me, ‘I love you.’ There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.” – Maya Angelou

12. “He doesn’t love you. But I love you. I want you to have your own thoughts and ideas and feelings, even when I hold you in my arms.” – George Emerson (Julian Sands) in A Room With A View

13. “But I love you I’m totally and completely in love with you and I don’t care if you think it’s too late. I’m telling you anyway.” –Natalie Portman in No Strings Attached

14. Hello, I love you, Won’t you tell me your name? Hello, I love you, Let me jump in your game.” – Jim Morrison, The Doors

15. “I’ve never fallen in love right off the bat. I get scared to say I love you too soon because it means so much. It means you’re not seeing an end to things.” – Leighton Meester

16. “For you see, each day I love you more, today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.” –Rosemonde Gerard

17. “I love you. I am at rest with you. I have come home.” – Dorothy L. Sayers

18. “A good speech has a beginning, a middle and an end, the best example being, ‘I love you.” – Robert Brault

19. “Wait! They don’t love you like I love you.” –Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs

20. “Netflix, I love you.” – Beau Mirchoff