Poet, essayist, and novelist Robert Graves wrote often about love, which he saw as more than a sentiment, feeling, or burst of passion. Love in its true form, he suggested, is an understanding and appreciation of what makes a person wholly unique. To Graves, love was something given freely with no expectations. “Love is giving and giving and giving… not looking for any return,” he said in an interview in 1963. “Until you do that, you can’t love.”

Isaac Asimov is considered one of the “Big Three” science fiction writers of the 20th century, alongside Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. Hugely prolific, he wrote or edited some 500 books, ranging from guides to the works of Shakespeare to collections of lewd limericks. But he is best known for his hard sci-fi novels, especially the “Foundation” and “Robot” series. Asimov was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University, so he certainly knew his science. He knew people too; like his friend and fellow writer Kurt Vonnegut, he served as the president of the American Humanist Association. Indeed, societal evolution plays a key role in Asimov’s Hugo Award-winning “Foundation” series, whose central characters try to predict the outcomes of galaxy-spanning events — while also trying to understand one another on a personal level. 

The romance between artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera was legendary. By all accounts, they inspired and infuriated each other in equal measure. The two were married in 1929, but fought often and were both known to have extramarital affairs. They divorced in 1939, only to remarry again a year later. Through it all, they featured prominently in each other’s art, and Kahlo in particular wrote effusively about her feelings for Rivera. This quote, from a love letter to her husband, speaks of two unique but deeply connected personalities that understood each other like no one else could.