Marriage Quotes - Page 40

I consider marriage a very important institution, but it is important when and if two people have found the person with whom they wish to spend the rest of their lives—a question of which no man or woman can be automatically certain. When one is certain that one’s choice is final, then marriage is, of course, a desirable state. But this does not mean that any relationship based on less than total certainty is improper. I think the question of an affair or a marriage depends on the knowledge and the position of the two persons involved and should be left up to them. Either is moral, provided only that both parties take the relationship seriously and that it is based on values.

Ayn Rand

What about me?” Wes snapped. “Don’t I get a vote?”Daniel shook his head. “She’s willing and you’re breathing. I pronounce you man and wife.

Jodi Thomas

...sometimes I do actually forget that the person to whom I owe that love is a real person, complete in himself, not someone who should make do with some rather diffuse emotion which gradually resigns itself to its own fatal vagueness, as if that were a fate against which there were no possible appeal...

José Saramago

There are trials and mistakes and even wars along the path of marriage.

Patti Callahan Henry

It took nearly a year to finish the ever-changing [marriage candidates] list, with the assistance of his sister and his aging spinster aunt, who lorded over their affairs as the self-appointed voice of cultivated reason. During this time, Gabriel struggled to convince straight-from-Oxford Tristan that he must marry, produce heirs, and maintain the family dukedom for Gabriel himself wouldn't marry. He knew he simply did not have the compulsion to inflict that sort of aggravation on a woman.

Olivia Parker

William: My brother has an appreciation of art, so I imagine the woman he chooses must be beautiful beyond the pale. Once he outgrows his current predilection with painting and accepts his family responsibilities, he'll need a wife who can move throughout society. She must have proper carriage and be a witty conversationalist. She should have excellent bloodlines as well, in the event of offspring.Emma: With the possible exception of a witty conversationalist, I believe you've described all the attributes of a racehorse.

Donna MacMeans

If you wanted to kidnap someone, what would you use?" she asked Amit. They were lying in bed, with the lights off. To knock them unconscious. So that you could drag them into the back of your van."Chloroform, I guess."Really?" She brightened. It made her happy that the person she was marrying would commit crimes in the same way as she would.

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

Should I tell her of the moments of joy, the intense pleasure of holding the hand of the one you love and wishing that time would stand still?

Kelly Long

In any relationship, there will be frightening spells in which your feelings of love dry up. And when that happens you must remember that the essence of marriage is that it is a covenant, a commitment, a promise of future love. So what do you do? You do the acts of love, despite your lack of feeling. You may not feel tender, sympathetic, and eager to please, but in your actions you must BE tender, understanding, forgiving and helpful. And, if you do that, as time goes on you will not only get through the dry spells, but they will become less frequent and deep, and you will become more constant in your feelings. This is what can happen if you decide to love.

Timothy J. Keller

Sometimes the one thing you need for growth is the one thing you are afraid to do.

Shannon L. Alder

Has no one ever told you that it is the height of impropriety to kiss any gentleman, unless you have the intention of accompanying him immediately to the altar?

Georgette Heyer

Marriage isn't for the weak or lazy. It's work, and it should be. What would be the point otherwise?

J D ROBB

..but it seemed to him that the tie between husband and wife, if breakable in prosperity, should be indissoluble in misfortune.

Edith Wharton

Them lady poets must not marry, pal . . . It is a true error to marry with poets / or to be by them.

John Berryman

Because the night you asked me,the small scar of the quarter moonhad healed - the moon was whole again;because life seemed so short;because life stretched out before melike the halls of a nightmare;because I knew exactly what I wanted;because I knew exactly nothing;because I shed my childhood with my clothes -they both had years of wear in them;because your eyes were darker than my father's;because my father said I could do better;because I wanted badly to say no;because Stanly Kowalski shouted "Stella...;"because you were a door I could slam shut;because endings are written before beginnings;because I knew that after twenty yearsyou'd bring the plants inside for winterand make a jungle we'd sleep in naked;because I had free will;because everything is ordained;I said yes.

Linda Pastan

And it feels good to feel young with you, and at the same time to grow old with you. And it's all those things together at the same moment.

Dave Isay

She took comfort in the familiarity of his smell, knowing that if she lost all her possessions and her home, at least she would have her family.

Sage Steadman

Every girl would like to marry a rich husband. I did twice. But what divides girls into two groups is this question - do you first think of money and then love, or vice versa?

Hedy Lamarr

Rocky, if I’ve learned anything from my train wreck of a marriage, it’s that no one can take care of me better than I can.

Starr Ambrose

Their long years together had shown him that it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty, as long as it kept the dignity of duty: lapsing from that, it became a mere battle of ugly appetites.

Edith Wharton

... it is quite funny really when you think that probably I would have married him if he'd been at all clever about it. But instead of putting it to me as a sensible business proposition he would drag in all this talk about love the whole time, and I simply can't bear those showerings of sentimentality. Otherwise I should most likely have married him ages ago.

Nancy Mitford

It's as important to marry the right life as it is the right person.

Jan Struther

When a marriage fails, the story of the relationship changes. The best parts, the parts that made you think getting married was a good idea, fade from memory.

Tori Spelling

My sudden, unforeseen capitulation had knocked me backward, and I had nothing to hold on to. My internal weather was eerily calm, as if in a tornado's aftermath, birdsong, sunshine, supersaturated colors, wreckage all around, and myself, dazed and limping.

Kate Christensen

In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.

Samuel Butler

This was the cream of marriage, this nightly turning out of the day's pocketful of memories, this deft habitual sharing of two pairs of eyes, two pairs of ears. It gave you, in a sense, almost a double life: though never, on the other hand, quite a single one.

Jan Struther

Most marriages don't add two people together. They subtract one from the other.

Ian Fleming

…marriage, they say, halves one's rights and doubles one's duties.

Louisa May Alcott

What made marriage so difficult back then was yet again that instigator of so many other sorts of heartbreak: the oversize brain.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Too many believe that love is a condition, a feeling that involves 100 percent of the heart, something that happens to you. They disassociate love from the mind and, therefore, from agency. In commanding us to love, the Lord refers to something much deeper than romance — a love that is the most profound form of loyalty. He is teaching us that love is something more than feelings of the heart; it is also a covenant we keep with soul and mind.

Lynn G. Robbins

What young people didn’t know, she thought, lying down beside this man, his hand on her shoulder, her arm; oh, what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly, as if it were a tart on a platter with others that got passed around again. No, if love was available, one chose it, or didn’t choose it. And if her platter had been full with the goodness of Henry and she had found it burdensome, had flicked it off crumbs at a time, it was because she had not known what one should know: that day after day was unconsciously squandered.tAnd so, if this man next to her now was not a man she would have chosen before this time, what did it matter: He most likely wouldn’t have chosen her either. But here they were, and Olive pictured two slices of Swiss cheese pressed together, such holes they brought to this union—what pieces life took out of you.tHer eyes were closed, and throughout her tired self swept waves of gratitude—and regret. She pictured the sunny room, the sun-washed wall, the bayberry outside. It baffled her, the world. She did not want to leave it yet.

Elizabeth Strout

[Jo to her mother] I knew there was mischief brewing. I felt it and now it's worse than I imagined. I just wish I could marry Meg myself, and keep her safe in the family.

Louisa May Alcott

Don't allow yourself to get into the habit of dressing carelessly when there is 'only' your husband to see you. Depend upon it he has no use for faded tea-gowns and badly dressed hair, and he abhors the sight of curling pins as much as other men do. He is a man after all, and if his wife does not take the trouble to charm him, there are plenty of other women who will.

Blanche Ebbutt

I tried to imagine what it would be like if Constantin were my husband.It would mean getting up at seven and cooking him eggs and bacon and toast andcoffee and dawdling about in my nightgown and curlers after he'd left for work to wash up the dirty plates and make the bed, and then when he came home after a lively, fascinating day he'd expect a big dinner, and I'd spend the evening washing up even more dirty plates till I fell into bed, utterly exhausted. This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A's, but I knew that's what marriage was like, because cook and clean and wash was just what Buddy Willard's mother did from morning till night, and she was the wife of a university professor and had been a private school teacher herself.

Sylvia Plath

Marriage is very important. Marrying a girl is the most important thing a man can do. Never mind business or politics or sport or any of that, there's nothing so vital to the world as a man marrying a woman. That's where we get our children from, that's how the human race goes forward. And if it's too late for children, there's the companionship of a safe and trusted person.

Frank Delaney

You have worked to build me what I asked for all the days of our lives. Even when the task seemed impossible, even when it would have been easier to give it up, you did not, but kept on going. You have kept me warm in winter, and cool in summer. You have laughed with me, and you have cried. You have given me children who are almost, but not quite, my greatest joy.For the greatest joy of all is the way you held my wish in the center of your heart thorough all the days of our lives. That is where the room that you have built for me lies. Just as the room I built for you lies within mine. And in this way have all our wishes been granted. Together, we have made ourselves a home.

Cameron Dokey

I know not which lives more unnatural lives, obeying husbands, or commanding wives.

Benjamin Franklin

Did you ever see so many pee-wee hats, Carl?""They're beanies.""They call them pee-wees in Brooklyn.""But I'm not in Brooklyn.""But you're still a Brooklynite.""I wouldn't want that to get around, Annie.""You don't mean that, Carl.""Ah, we might as well call them beanies, Annie.""Why?""When in Rome do as the Romans do.""Do they call them beanies in Rome?" she asked artlessly."This is the silliest conversation...

Betty Smith

It is within the bonds of marriage that I, for one, found a greater freedom to be and to become and to share myself thatn I can imaine ever having found in any other kind of relationship.

Frederick Buechner

What's it like? Being married?Cold feet. Middle of the night you're sleeping, suddenly, wham, you've got ice cold feet warming themselves on the back of your legs.

Alan Brennert

Think of your husband as a house. You are allowed to give him a fresh coat of paint and change out the furniture now and then. But if you're constantly trying to pour a new foundation or replace the roof, you're in serious trouble.

Peter Scott

People told me not to get married; I didn´t listen. No one ever listens, it seems to me now. Perhaps people should stop trying to communicate. N was not a communicator; early on, I´d insisted on communication. Now I see his point acutely. I would love to have him back to not communicate with me. I would never ask for communication again, I would simply go elsewhere for the deep fish. Also, I´m not at all sure I want to hear what he has to say in this new vista. This works out well.

Suzanne Finnamore

This is much worse than losing a cat. You do not wish the cat dead, for example, after the first two days. You still love the cat and presumably the cat still loves you, or some variation of love that may in fact be dependence and even indifference. People should be informed, as adopting a cat and becoming married take about the same amount of time and money and yet have such drastically different results. Indeed, except for the similar price($28)and the average time spent together, all similarity between pet adoption and marriage ends nastily.

Suzanne Finnamore

Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and doesn't much like the look of? It is half real and half pretense - and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet an eligible young men. They just...wonder.

Dodie Smith

...the social mould civilization fits us into have no more relation to our actual shapes than the conventional shapes of the constellations have to the real star-patterns. I am called Mrs. Richard Phillotson, living a calm wedded life with my counterpart of that name. But I am not really Mrs. Richard Phillotson, but a woman tossed about, all alone, with aberrant passions, and unaccountable antipathies...

Thomas Hardy

In the end it was Tabby who cast the deciding vote, as she so often has at crucial moments in my life. I'd like to think I've done the same for her from time to time, because it seems to me that one of the things marriage is about is casting the tiebreaking vote when you just can't decide what you should do next.

Stephen King

As is often the case, the sole person not left speechless in awe by my brilliance is my own beloved wife.

Jack Womack

My mother was tickled and I think kind of proud when my father got hit on my an attractive middle-aged Asian lady who hadn't noticed he was with his family. He was certainly pleased about it.

Craig Ferguson

Marriage is like a fingerprint. Everyone's is different.

Angela Lam (Turpin)

Marriage should be between a spouse and a spouse, not a gender and a gender.

Hendrik Hertzberg

She wanted to explain everything to him—how certain notes of the Moonlight Sonata shredded her heart like wind inside a paper bag; how her soul felt as endless and deep as the sea churning on their left; how the sight of the young Muslim couple filled her with an emotion that was equal parts joy and sadness; and above all, how she wanted a marriage that was different from the dead sea of marriages she saw all around her, how she wanted something finer, deeper, a marriage made out of silk and velvet instead of coarse cloth, a marriage made of clouds and stardust and red earth and ocean foam and moonlight and sonatas and books and art galleries and passion and kindness and sorrow and ecstasy and of fingers touching from under a burqua.

Thrity Umrigar

It will be your duty, and it will be your pleasure too to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities that she has, and not by the qualities she may not have.

Charles Dickens

Love is a devoted madness while marriage is a responsibility. But then it is possible to be devotedly mad and responsible at the same time, yes it is. And so this is how we should begin to see marriage: as it is, for what it is! Marriage needs to cease being an eternal ideal with the predestined ending of death! We must allow it to be and to appear as what it is! Perhaps if we approach marriage with eyes open to the reality of the nature of it, we will stop failing at it! We fail at it because we think of it as something it is not! We are romanced by an ideal that is not in touch with reality and that's why when we begin to discover the reality of it, we see ourselves as failures! It is a wild and blessed thing to want to spend the rest of your adult life with one person, growing and changing together, while stepping deeper into the depths of love; notwithstanding, we must understand that we may not get it "right" the first time.

C. JoyBell C.

What had been quiet and restful was now silent and empty.

Frederick Barthelme

Anna, falling in love with you was like coming home to a place I didn't realize I'd been missing all my life. You're the only person I've ever known who accepts me for who I am, right in this moment, faults and all, and isn't waiting for me to become someone else.

Jennifer Chiaverini

Will you marry me, my darling ?Do I have options, you bastard ?

Toba Beta

In every possible instance Saint Paul begged Christians to restrain themselves to contain their carnal yearnings to live solitary and sexless lives on earth as it is in heaven. "But if they cannot contain " Paul finally conceded then "let them marry for it is better to marry than to burn." Which is perhaps the most begrudging endorsement of matrimony in human history.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Rosa Hubermann was sitting on the edge of the bed with her husband's accordion tied to her chest. Her fingers hovered above the keys. She did not move. She didn't ever appear to be breathing.

Markus Zusak

May your heart be mine, may my heart be yours. May your sorrows be mine, may my joys be yours.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

That was true, Iris would sometimes think, about marriage: it was only a boat, too. A wooden boat, difficult to build, even more difficult to maintain, whose beauty derived at least in part from its unlikelihood. Long ago the pragmatic justifications for both marriage and wooden-boat building had been lost or superseded. Why invest countless hours, years, and dollars in planing and carving, gluing and fastening, caulking and fairing, when a fiberglass boat can be had at a fraction of the cost? Why struggle to maintain love and commitment over decades when there were far easier ways to live, ones that required no effort or attention to prevent corrosion and rot? Why continue to pour your heart into these obsolete arts? Because their beauty, the way they connect you to your history and to the living world, justifies your efforts. A long marriage, like a classic wooden boat, could be a thing of grace, but only if great effort was devoted to its maintenance. At first your notions of your life with another were no more substantial than a pattern laid down in plywood. Then year by year you constructed the frame around the form, and began layering memories, griefs, and small triumphs like strips of veneer planking bent around the hull of everyday routine. You sanded down the rough edges, patched the misunderstandings, faired the petty betrayals. Sometimes you sprung a leak. You fell apart in rough weather or were smashed on devouring rocks. But then, as now, in the teeth of a storm, when it seemed like all was lost, the timber swelled, the leak sealed up, and you found that your craft was, after all, sea-kindly.

Ayelet Waldman

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Marriage Quotes - Page 40

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