An open red matchbox with a lit match beside a tangled ball of pink yarn on a grey surface.

Original artwork, not a still

H. L. Mencken

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

Love is compared to war through the difference between starting and stopping. Beginning can seem easy, while the feelings and entanglements that follow prove much harder to end. The sharp comparison makes a familiar romantic idea sound unsettling rather than effortless.

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