bell hooks didn’t treat love as a vague emotion or a romantic mood. She treated it as a practice—a set of choices, behaviors, and values that can either liberate or dominate. Many of her most-cited reflections on love appear in All About Love: New Visions (and related works like Communion), where she argues that love must be rooted in truth, accountability, and justice.
This page collects 22 of the most meaningful bell hooks quotes on love—along with brief commentary to help you understand what she was really saying, and why it still matters.
How bell hooks Defined Love
At the core of bell hooks’ philosophy is a refusal to confuse love with attachment, desire, control, or intensity. She pushes readers to adopt a shared definition of love and to measure love by what it does, not by what it claims. If love is real, it shows up as care, respect, honesty, responsibility, and a commitment to growth.
Love Is an Action (Not a Mood)
1) Love is a practice
“Love is an action, never simply a feeling.”
Hooks draws a hard line here: feelings can come and go, but love is proven by repeated choices and behaviors.
2) Love as a verb
“The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb.”
This is a direct challenge to passive love. If love is a verb, it requires intention—something you do, not something you “fall into.”
3) Love is decision + promise
“To love somebody is not just a strong feeling – it’s a decision, it’s a judgement, it’s a promise.”
Love is not merely emotional intensity; it involves discernment, commitment, and follow-through over time.
4) Love is will and choice
“Love is as love does. Love is an act of will—namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.”
Hooks makes love accountable. If it’s chosen, it can be practiced deliberately—especially when it’s difficult.
Love and Accountability: You Can’t Call Harm “Love”
5) Abuse disqualifies love
“When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another’s spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive. Love and abusive cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care….”
Hooks dismantles the cultural lie that “love” can coexist with cruelty. If it harms, it isn’t love—no matter what someone calls it.
6) A culture-wide myth to debunk
“One of the most important social myths we must debunk if we are to become a more loving culture is the one that teaches parents that abuse and neglect can coexist with love. Abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love. No one can rightfully claim to be loving when behaving abusively.”
This is one of hooks’ most important contributions: love cannot be used as a cover for domination, control, or violence.
7) Rejecting “love” in abusive contexts
“Most of us find it difficult to accept a definition of love that says we are never loved in a context where there is abuse.”
This quote names a painful truth: many people were trained to normalize harm, and then to call it love.
Love Requires Honesty, Attention, and Real Communication
8) Honesty is the foundation
“Honesty and openness is always the foundation of insightful dialogue.”
Hooks frames truth-telling as a love practice. Without honesty, relationships become performance or manipulation.
9) Attention is an actual resource
“Giving generously in romantic relationships, and in all other bonds, means recognizing when the other person needs our attention. Attention is an important resource.”
Love shows up in presence. Not just words—attention, time, and care.
10) Intimacy as “unmasking”
“When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery—that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are. . . . This kind of unmasking—speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges—is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply.”
Hooks describes intimacy as honesty without punishment. The relationship becomes “sanctuary” only when truth is safe.
Love and Justice: The Ethics Beneath the Feeling
11) Love and justice are inseparable
“There can be no love without justice. Until we live in a culture that no only respects but also upholds basic civil rights for children, most children will not know love.”
Hooks expands love beyond private relationships. Love isn’t only personal—it’s cultural and structural.
12) Love as liberation
“The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.”
In hooks’ worldview, love is not passive comfort. It’s an active force that resists domination.
13) Love as connecting across difference
“When we are taught that safety lies always with sameness, then difference, of any kind, will appear as a threat. When we choose to love we choose to move against fear—against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect—to find ourselves in the other.”
This quote reframes love as courage: connection over separation, belonging over fear.
14) A love ethic requires change
“To bring a love ethic to every dimension of our lives, our society would need to embrace change.”
Hooks calls out the gap between what we say about love and what our systems reward. Real love ethics disrupt convenience.
15) Love assumes a right to be free
“A love ethic presupposes that everyone has the right to be free, to live fully and well.”
If your “love” restricts another person’s freedom or dignity, it’s not love—it’s control.
Self-Love, Solitude, and Spiritual Growth
16) Solitude makes love healthier
“Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”
Hooks ties love to emotional maturity: self-possession prevents dependency and emotional consumption of others.
17) Community without avoidance
“But many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”
This expands the previous idea: connection is healthiest when it isn’t built on fear or avoidance.
18) Love as spiritual awakening
“All awakening to love is spiritual awakening”
For hooks, love isn’t just relational—it changes how we live, what we value, and what we’re willing to face.
Love as Culture: What We’re Missing
19) Love’s absence teaches its importance
“WHEN I WAS a child, it was clear to me that life was not worth living if we did not know love. I wish I could testify that I came to this awareness because of the love I felt in my life. But it was love’s absence that let me know how much love mattered.”
This is hooks at her most personal: the hunger for love becomes clarity about what truly matters.
20) The “terrible secret”
“The truth is, far too many people in our culture do not know what love is. And this not knowing feels like a terrible secret, a lack that we have to cover up.”
Hooks calls out a widespread shame: many people are performing “love” without ever having learned what it actually requires.
21) A circle of love
“I learned then that it is more fulfilling to live one’s life within a circle of love, interacting with loved ones to whom we are committed.”
This frames love as a way of building a life—not just having a relationship. Commitment creates stability and meaning.
22) Loving life (not just people)
“To live fully we would need to let go of our fear of dying. That fear can only be addressed by the love of living.”
This is a powerful pivot: love is not only interpersonal—it is also a stance toward life itself.
Recommended Reading
- All About Love: New Visions (Review + Summary)
- bell hooks Quotes (Main Hub)
Frequently Asked Questions
What is bell hooks’ definition of love?
bell hooks points to love as a practice grounded in care, responsibility, respect, commitment, trust, and a shared intention to nurture growth.
Where do most of these bell hooks love quotes come from?
Many of her most-cited love quotes come from All About Love: New Visions, with related ideas also appearing across her broader work on culture, power, and liberation.
Why did bell hooks connect love to justice?
Because she saw love as incompatible with domination. Love is not simply personal—it shapes family systems, cultural values, and the freedom we allow one another to have.