How to turn a “passionate love” into an “amorous life”? How can one maintain the initial enthusiasm in one’s daily life? This is the problem that all lovers have had to solve in their own way, with mixed results. Words of Love is a treatise on love which examines those lovers’ efforts to “keep the impossible flame alive”, in Vicente Aleixandre’s words.

Philosopher José Antonio Marina has explored the way in which dozens of couples have experienced their triumphs and failures while trying to turn an intense, short-lived passion into a sustained life of love. Is it possible to do without the heightened intensity of passion, even if this hurts us and upsets our lives? Can passion be reconciled with the calm that issues when we share our life with someone, with everyday love? How can human beings alleviate the nostalgia that takes hold of them when they feel overwhelmed by tedium and devoid of ardour?
What can the reader expect of this book? It familiarises us with other people’s experiences, with their right and wrong decisions; it lets us see into their hearts and, perhaps, urges us to know our own, which is always a mystery.