" I almost feel sorry for that man,” Telys’s mother said one evening as we made camp. “I think he loves you very much. He’s breaking his heart over you, child.”
“Is that supposed to make me love him? Suppose I did marry him, just because he wouldn’t stop pestering me until I gave in. Imagine that another man arrives, years later, and he’s breaking his heart over me as well. What am I supposed to do then? Run away with the new pest?” I shook my head. “Is love just a matter of badgering someone until you get your own way, like a spoiled child? If that’s so, Aphrodite ought to carry a hammer as a warning. "

― Esther M. Friesner , Nobody's Prize (Nobody's Princess, #2)