quotations about marriage
People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked.
PAUL NEWMAN
Paul Newman: A Life in Pictures
Beds last on an average much longer than marriages.
MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ
Whatever
To "catch" a husband is an art; to "hold" him is a job.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Second Sex
When a man marries a woman, they become one--the trouble starts when they try to decide which one.
CROFT M. PENTZ
The Complete Book of Zingers
Marriages don't last. When I meet a guy, the first question I ask myself is: "Is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?"
RITA RUDNER
stand-up routine
The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast.
GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ
Love in the Time of Cholera
The curse which lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals are joined in their weakness rather than in their strength, each asking from the other instead of finding pleasure in giving.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Second Sex
Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
letter to Michael Tolkien, March 1941
Marriage is just an elaborate game that allows two selfish people to periodically feel that they're not.
PAUL REISER
Couplehood
Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin, but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building.
OSCAR WILDE
A Woman of No Importance
To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it,
Whenever you're right, shut up.
OGDEN NASH
Marriage Lines: Notes of a Student Husband
Sometimes I think marriage licenses should be like driver's licenses. They expire after a number of years, and in order to keep going you have to renew. Wouldn't that be kind of genius? It would force you both to look at the relationship, and if it's not working, the marriage would expire so you could go on your merry way, or on the positive side of it, you could look at each other and say we really want to renew. What a way to keep it fresh!!
JENNY MCCARTHY
Life Laughs
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Marriage and Single Life", Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral
Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Talk and Talkers
Those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the constancy of its vows are the very people who declare that if the chain were broken and the prisoners left free to choose, the whole social fabric would fly asunder. You cannot have the argument both ways. If the prisoner is happy, why lock him in? If he is not, why pretend that he is?
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Man and Superman
Marriage is a legal and financial contract, not just a spiritual and emotional one. This is why marital contracts are dissolved by the state (and specifically the court), not by the church. However, too often people pay a high price for ignoring this reality when ending a marriage. Women, in particular, are particularly vulnerable when failing to prepare for divorce, because they are more likely than men to experience a decrease in their standard of living in the year after ending a marriage.
ALFRED EDMOND, JR.
"3 Business Principles to Embrace When Ending a Marriage", Black Enterprise, November 28, 2017
Marriage is a tyranny.... Surely it is simply the keeping of a devil in a mob-cap!
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Focus on your marriage. Because that's the nucleus of the home, whatever you do to restore its health and strength will naturally restore what's broken among the other relationships. If you have no children yet, this will make a comfortable nest for them to begin life well. If you have children, the changes you make in your marriage will affect the rest of the household more quickly and dramatically than you think.
CHARLES R. SWINDOLL
Marriage: From Surviving to Thriving
Some day, some day men and women will rise, they will reach the mountain peak, they will meet big and strong and free, ready to receive, to partake, and to bask in the golden rays of love. What fancy, what imagination, what poetic genius can foresee even approximately the potentialities of such a force in the life of men and women. If the world is ever to give birth to true companionship and oneness, not marriage, but love will be the parent.
EMMA GOLDMAN
"Marriage and Love", Anarchism and Other Essays
No, there are three people in a marriage, there's the woman, there's the man, and there's what I call the third person, the most important, the person who is composed of the man and woman together.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
All the Names