Love means never having to say you're sorry

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Love means never having to say you're sorry is a line from the 1970 movie Love Story starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal.

The quote was voted #13 in the American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes, a list of top movie quotes.^[1]

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The quote appears twice in the film. Once toward the middle when MacGraw's character Jennifer Cavilleri said it, and again as the last line in the film, repeated by O'Neal's character Oliver Barrett IV as a tribute to Jennifer.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Influences, parodies and spoofs

John Lennon famously said, "Love means having to say you're sorry every fifteen minutes."
Toward the end of the 1972 screwball comedy What's Up, Doc?, which stars Ryan O'Neal, when Barbra Streisand's character coos "Love means never having to say you're sorry" while batting her eyelashes, O'Neal's character responds, "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard."
The tagline to the poster of the 1971 film The Abominable Dr. Phibes (showing Vincent Price's horrifically scarred title character kissing a woman) read "Love Means Never Having To Say You're Ugly."
The Simpsons features an episode where the Simpson family rent the video Love Story. When the movie got to the line "Love means never having to say you're sorry," Lisa objects, "No it doesn't!"
A song by reggae artist Beres Hammond is entitled "Love Means Never Having To Say I'm Sorry"
An episode of television's Sabrina, the Teenage Witch is entitled "Love Means Having to Say You're Sorry."
An episode of Doogie Howser, M.D. is entitled "Love Means Constantly Having to Say You're Sorry."
In the Rugrats episode "Rebel Without a Teddy Bear", Angelica remarks that "[b]eing bad means never having to say you're sorry."
In an episode of Night Court, Judge Harry Stone quips, "Being judge means never having to say you're sorry."
A witticism among statisticians is "Statistics means never having to say you're certain."