My introduction to this passage happened quite a few years ago. I would have been in grade school at the time. For some reason, I got into a fight with my younger brother, at church no less. I guess I was not perfect then. My father was not pleased. When we got home, I was sent to my room and would not be allowed to go free until I had memorized 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. I felt like I could never do it but I did.
What started as a punishment, became a gift. Most importantly, not because of the description of love, but for Paul's admission that “For now we see in a mirror dimly”. If Paul did not understand every thing then it was OK if I did not (and do not). Over the years I read this passage many times both in private and publicly, including most specially at my father's funeral.
It always speaks to me.

And if I have prophetic powers,
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,
but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.
As for prophecies, they will pass away;
as for tongues, they will cease;
as for knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

[This translation is the English Standard Version]