I never liked you, and I always will.

“I never liked you, and I always will.” Thus spoke Samuel Goldwyn, the titan of early Hollywood, a man famed not only for his films but for his paradoxical wisdom, often delivered through wit so sharp it became eternal. In these few words lies the soul of human contradiction — the duality of affection and frustration, the tension between our hearts and our egos, between the people who irritate us and the people we cannot live without. This saying, like much of Goldwyn’s humor, captures the essence of the human condition: that love and conflict are often twins, born of the same fierce connection.

To understand these words, one must understand the man who spoke them. Samuel Goldwyn was not a philosopher by trade, but a pioneer of dreams — a founder of the great Hollywood machine that turned imagination into industry. Yet behind the mogul’s stern exterior was a man of sentiment, a man who knew that relationships, whether in business or in life, are rarely clean or simple. His statement, “I never liked you, and I always will,” is both a jest and a confession: a recognition that affection does not require agreement, and that love can survive even in the presence of deep exasperation. It is the eternal dance between admiration and annoyance, between loyalty and freedom.

The ancients, too, understood this paradox. The Greek philosophers spoke of philia — the friendship born of respect — and eros, the fire that consumes but often clashes. In both, they found the same truth: to care deeply for another is to open oneself to both joy and irritation, harmony and discord. Goldwyn’s words are not cynical; they are profoundly human. They suggest that true attachment endures not because it is free from conflict, but because it grows stronger through it. Love is not destroyed by imperfection — it is defined by the ability to embrace imperfection and yet remain.

Consider the story of Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, two giants of the twentieth century whose alliance shaped the fate of the world. They admired one another greatly, yet often disagreed fiercely. Churchill found Roosevelt exasperatingly idealistic; Roosevelt found Churchill stubborn and theatrical. And yet, beneath their quarrels burned mutual respect and enduring affection. They could argue through the night, but come morning, they stood side by side once more. Goldwyn’s phrase could have been their unspoken creed: I never liked you, and I always will. For such is the nature of deep bonds — they survive the storm because they are anchored in something greater than emotion alone.

In the realm of art and creation, this paradox is even more potent. Artists often wrestle with their muses, hating the demands of their craft even as they cannot live without it. Goldwyn, surrounded by writers, directors, and actors of towering ego, surely knew this truth firsthand. The artist and the producer, the dreamer and the pragmatist — each frustrates the other, yet each is incomplete without the other. His quote, then, may have been more than a jest about personal relationships; it was an acknowledgment of creative tension, that friction which births beauty. Without conflict, there is no spark; without spark, no fire.

And so, the lesson is clear: to love truly — whether a person, a craft, or a cause — is not to adore blindly, but to endure honestly. The bonds that last are not those untested by anger or disagreement, but those that withstand them. The heart that can say, “I never liked you, and I always will,” is a heart that has learned to love beyond comfort, beyond pride, beyond the illusion of perfection. It is the voice of wisdom smiling through frustration, saying, You may vex me, but I am bound to you nonetheless.

Therefore, my friend, learn from this paradox and carry it gently into your own life. When you find yourself at odds with those you care for, when your passions collide with your patience, remember that affection is not absence of irritation — it is persistence through it. Laugh at your own contradictions, as Goldwyn did; let humor soften what the heart cannot yet resolve. Be faithful to the people, the work, and the dreams that challenge you most, for they are the ones that shape you deepest.

For in the end, to say “I never liked you, and I always will” is not an insult — it is a confession of profound love. It is the admission that connection is messy, that loyalty is irrational, that the human heart is vast enough to hold both affection and annoyance, rejection and devotion. It is, perhaps, the truest kind of love — not the perfect love of fantasy, but the enduring love of reality: flawed, fierce, and everlasting.