The essential matrimonial facts: that to be happy you have to find variety in repetition; that to go forward you have to come back to where you begin.
-Jeffrey Eugenides
"Middlesex"
Quotations
Marriage
In marriage, each partner is to be an encourager rather than a critic; a forgiver rather than a collector of hurts; an enabler rather than a reformer.
-H. Norman Wright
Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.
-George Bernard Shaw
He knows little who will tell his wife all he knows.
-Thomas Fuller
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
-Jane Austen
"Pride and Prejudice"
It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession.
-Thomas Hardy
"Far from the Madding Crowd"
What we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage.
-Gary D. Chapman
"The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate"
A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time.
-Anne Taylor Fleming
Two people can only live as one when each is prepared to give and receive trust and understanding. Above that lies respect. Without respect for how the other feels, no marriage is worthwhile.
-Helen Hollick
"The Kingmaking"
When a girl marries, she exchanges the attention of many men for the inattention of one.
-Helen Rowland
