c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Mendanbar took a deep breath. “You could stay here. At the castle, I mean. With me.” This wasn’t coming out at all the way he had wanted it to, but it was too late to stop now. He hurried on, “As Queen of the Enchanted Forest, if you think you would like that. I would.”“Would you, really?”“Yes,” Mendanbar said, looking down. “I love you, and—and—”“And you should have said that to begin with,” Cimorene interrupted, putting her arms around him.Mendanbar looked up, and the expression on her face made his heart begin to pound.“Just to be sure I have this right,” Cimorene went on with a blinding smile, “did you just ask me to marry you?”“Yes,” Mendanbar said. “At least, that’s what I meant.”“Good. I will.”Mendanbar tried to find something to say, but he was too happy to think. He leaned forward two inches and kissed Cimorene, and discovered that he didn’t need to say anything at all.
— Patricia C. Wrede, Searching for Dragons
And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing. Taken in that light, certainly their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could place them in such a view. You will allow that in both man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both it is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of each; and that when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each other till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty each to endeavor to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she had bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest to keep their own imaginations from wandering towards the perfections of their neighbors, or fancying that they should have been better off with any one else.
— Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
When single you are,” Roger said, imitating Yoda dispensing advice to Luke, “get laid you can. When married you get, make love you do.
— Sean Kennedy, Tigers and Devils
I mean, what do people talk about when they're married?" "Their kids, I guess." "Maybe that's all they have in common.
— Rita Mae Brown, Rubyfruit Jungle
See I'm the reckless and wild one who saves him from being boring. It's why we're perfect for each other. We balance. - Madame Selena
— Sherrilyn Kenyon, Seize the Night
Like so many substantial citizens of America, he had married young and kept on marrying, springing from blonde to blonde like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag.
— P.G. Wodehouse, Summer Moonshine
When a man says to me, 'Let us work together in the great cause you have undertaken, and let me be your companion and aid, for I admire you more than I have ever admired any other woman,' then I shall say, 'I am yours truly'; but he must ask me to be his equal, not his slave.
— Susan B. Anthony
Marriage . . . is not a love affair
—  it is an ordeal. (92)
This people know where their husbands are. I would like to vomit. I would like to vomit my soul out.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
When we sat down to eat I took inventory of the people in the room, and the remnants of my good mood evaporated when I realized how very little I had in common with them – the career dads, the responsible and diligent moms – and I was soon filled with dread and loneliness. I locked in on the smug feeling of superiority that married couples give off and that permeated the air – the shared assumptions, the sweet and contented apathy, it all lingered everywhere – despite the absence in the room of anyone single at which to aim this.
— Bret Easton Ellis, Lunar Park
you can't be value free when it comes to marriage
— Al Gore
I would rather not be engaged. When people are engaged, they begin to think of being married soon, and I should like everything to go on for a long while just as it is.
— George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
I can see you are a fine lady, but this boy is randy as a goat around you and it's plain to see. If he seeks the joys of wedded bliss, he can wed you. Without a weddin' he'll be havin' no bliss.
— Karen Marie Moning, To Tame a Highland Warrior
Don't you suppose men get surprised after they're married to findthat their wives do have sense?""Well, it's too late den. Dey's already mahied.
— Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
She thought of ... the way he never made made her feel crazy, even when she was acting crazy, and never made her feel like a failure, even when she was failing.
— Rainbow Rowell, Landline
Make my happiness--I will make yours.
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
She was in a terrible marriage and she couldn't talk to anyone. He used to hit her, and in the beginning she told him that if it ever happened again, she would leave him. He swore that it wouldn't and she believed him. But it only got worse after that, like when his dinner was cold, or when she mentioned that she'd visited with one of the neighbors who was walking by with his dog. She just chatted with him, but that night, her husband threw her into a mirror.
— Nicholas Sparks, Safe Haven
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
The number of chances you give someone doesn't tell the world how loving you are without telling them how desperate you are to believe they care as much as you. True love resides in the first chance, stupidity in the second, opportunists in the third and scoundrels in the fourth.
— Shannon L. Alder
The cafe was called Tattoos. The fella who owned it didn't have any tattoos... but we never saw his wife.
— Karl Pilkington
If I'm good enough to bed, surely I'm good enough to wed.
— Elizabeth Hoyt, Notorious Pleasures
Love & Marriage are about work & Compromise. They're about seeing someone for what he is, being disappointed and deciding to stick around anyway. They're about commitment and comfort, not some kind of sudden, hysterical recognition.
— Ayelet Waldman, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits
You must not imagine that Papa or I have the least notion of compelling you to marry anyone whom you hold in aversion, for I am sure that such a thing would be quite shocking! And Charles would not do so either, would you, dear Charles?”(Elizabeth Ombersley)“No, certainly not. But neither would I consent to her marriage with any such frippery fellow as Augustus Fawnhope!”“Augustus,” announced Cecilia, putting up her chin, “will be remembered long after you have sunk into oblivion!”“By his creditors? I don’t doubt it.
— Georgette Heyer, The Grand Sophy
I had my own bed. I slept in it alone, except for those times when we needed—not sex—but sex was how we got there.
— Amy Hempel, The Collected Stories
Personally, I know nothing about sex, because I have always been married.
— Zsa Zsa Gabor
When his wife was at his side, she was also in front of him, marking out the horizon of his life. Now the horizon is empty: the view has changed.
— Milan Kundera, Encounter
Irrationally, I think, Will You Marry Me? Four words. I Want a Divorce. Four words. I would like time to count the letters as well, but there is not time.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
I also remembered Buddy Willard saying in a sinister, knowing way that after Ihad children I would feel differently, I wouldn't want to write poems any more. So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state.
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
The abandonment came, and now this shabby bacchanal.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
This is much easier than when N left. Our son is unable to grasp and simultaneously turn doorknobs yet. If only this trick could be unlearned by men over thirty, many more families would celebrate Christmas together.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
Marriage is long enough to have plenty of room for time behind it.
— William Faulkner
Many families remain for years in the same place, though both husband and wife are sick of it, simply because there is neither complete division nor agreement between them.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
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.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
She was blissfully unaware of her peril.
— Anne Taintor
Above all, we pray that they will make the journey from selfishness to true love. Whether together or single, this is a journey we all have to make. In a sense it is the real journey of life.
— Jane Ross-MacDonald, Alternative Weddings: An Essential Guide for Creating Your Own Ceremony
Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.
— Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept
So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman looking at a girl throwing a ball
— Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
I sensed he may have occasionally strayed in some of his past relationships. It was something I felt but ignored, a rent in the fabric of an otherwise splendid garment I thought I could mend. I thought I could live with it—I thought, yes and I admit it, that I would be different. That at the very least, middle age and children would slow him down; however, they seemed to accelerate his pace.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
Women joked amongst themselves: 'Why do you think a bride cries on her wedding day? It's for the love that this marriage is putting an end to for all eternity. Men may think a woman has no past- "you were born and then I married you"- but men are fools.
— Nadeem Aslam, Maps for Lost Lovers
Still it is true that many same-sex couples want nothing more than to join society as fully integrated socially responsible family-centered taxpaying Little League-coaching nation-serving respectably married citizens. So why not welcome them in Why not recruit them by the vanload to sweep in on heroic wings and save the flagging and battered old institution of matrimony from a bunch of apathetic ne'er-do-well heterosexual deadbeats like me
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
... gay marriage rights coming and going, always being an issue for the voting public when it should be an individual‘s private choice.
— G.A. Hauser, Being Screwed
The most out-there thing I’m saying is, ‘Don’t have babies. Don’t get married and have kids. Have a larger life than that.
— Roseanne Barr
We invented marriage. Couples invented marriage. We also invented divorce,mind you. And we invented infidelity,too, as well as romantic misery. In fact we invented the whole sloppy mess of love and intimacy and aversion and euphoria and failure. But most importantly of all, most subversively of all, most stubbornly of all, we invented privacy.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
Social conservatives seem to see a bigger threat to marriage from committed gay couples who want in on it than from straight ones who opt out of it.
— Margaret Talbot
Think about what binds you to your husband and he to you. Marvel at the strength of that bond, which is both abstract and concrete, spiritual and legal.
— Whitney Otto, How to Make an American Quilt
I've been poked and prodded in places I'd always prided myself on keeping untouched for that one special doctor who gives me a ring and a promise someday.
— Libba Bray
The true love is unconditional.Marriage is a conditional bond.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
It's a terrible thing for a man when his woman gangs up on him wi' a toad
— Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
We could have made it to the Arizona border in a few more hours if we hadn't been distracting each other with stupid little arguments. Don't get me wrong; I liked J.Lo fine. I've made that bed. But I'm not sure there's a person in the world I could be with twenty-four hours a day for three weeks without getting a little snippy. If I ever meet such a person, I'm marrying them.
— Adam Rex, The True Meaning of Smekday
An acquaintance had become a lover, might become a husband, but would retain all that she had noted in the acquaintance; and love must confirm an old relation rather than reveal a new one.
— E.M. Forster
The only constant in our marriage is the edge of the cliff we're hanging on to, killing time until we tire ourselves out and give in to our inevitable collapse.
— Elizabeth Flock, Sleepwalking in Daylight
The conception of two people living together for twenty-five years without having a cross word suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep
— A.P. Herbert
As far as my experience of matrimony goes -- I think it tends to draw you out of, and away from yourself.
— Charlotte Brontë
Your place is with me,” Jem said. “It always will be.”“What do you mean?”He flushed, the color dark against his pale skin. “I mean,” he said, “Tessa Gray, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”Tessa sat bolt upright. “Jem!”They stared at each other for a moment. At last he said, trying for lightness, though his voice cracked, “That was not a no, I suppose, thoughneither was it a yes.”“You can’t mean it.”“I do mean it.”“You can’t—I’m not a Shadowhunter. They’ll expel you from the Clave—”He took a step closer to her, his eyes eager. “You may not be precisely a Shadowhunter. But you are not a mundane either, nor provably aDownworlder. Your situation is unique, so I do not know what the Clave will do. But they cannot forbid something that is not forbidden by the Law.They will have to take your—our—individual case into consideration, and that could take months. In the meantime they cannot prevent ourengagement.”“You are serious.” Her mouth was dry. “Jem, such a kindness on your part is indeed incredible. It does you credit. But I cannot let you sacrificeyourself in that way for me.”“Sacrifice? Tessa, I love you. I want to marry you.
— Cassandra Clare
It is not your love that sustains the marriage,but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
Something bad was about to happen. My wife was being clever again.
— Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
With a shiver of foreboding he saw his marriage becoming what most of the other marriages about him were: a dull association of material and social interests held together by ignorance on the one side and hypocrisy on the other.
— Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
The most incomprehensible thing in the world to a man, is a woman who rejects his offer of marriage!
— Jane Austen, Emma
I believe people ought to mate for life...like pigeons or Catholics.
— Woody Allen, Manhattan
A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards.
— George Eliot, Middlemarch
When a man takes a mistress, he doesn't turn around and divorce his wife.
— Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
I couldn't help wondering, is my husband so unattractive that no woman has ever wanted him? Except me, of course. I must have wanted him, in a way, once, but I've forgotten why, and I was too young to know what I was choosing.
— Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
Maybe the difference between first marriage and second marriage is that the second time at least you know you are gambling.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
This is a woman you've known less than twelve hours. It took you a year to pick out a couch, but you're seriously—"“Yes,” Roger said. “She's the one.
— Jennifer Crusie, Bet Me
Your wedding completely changes the direction of your life, you know, no matter how greatly you desire it. I think that moment of doubt and faintness comes from all those imagined and now impossible futures all pressing in on you at once. It is your last chance to experience them, you see, and they all want to be lived at that moment.
— Sharon Shinn, Jenna Starborn
Marriage was not the combination of two entities into one
—  it was instead the creation of a third entity whose sole purpose was to sooth and inspire the two individuals.
With twice his wits, she had to see things through his eyes -- one of the tragedies of married life.
— Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Don't forget to wish your husband good-morning when he sets off to the office. He will feel the lack of your good-bye kiss all day.
— Blanche Ebbutt, Don'ts for Wives
The Silly Putty-like malleability of the institution [marriage], in fact, is the only reason we still have the thing at all. Very few people... would accept marriage on it's thirteenth-century terms. Marriage survives, in other words, precisely because it evolves. (Though I suppose this would not be a very persuasive argument to those who probably also don't believe in evolution).
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
Marriage is a game. They (the anxious and powerful) set the rules. We (the ordinary and subversive) bow obediently before those rules. And then we go home and do whatever the hell we want anyhow.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
And too soon Marred are those so early Made.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
There are often two conversations going on in a marriage. The one that you’re having and the one you’re not.
— Robin    Black, Life Drawing
Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.
— H. Jackson Brown Jr.
There is nothing more lovely in life than the union of two people whose love for one another has grown through the years, from the small acorn of passion, into a great rooted tree
— Vita Sackville-West
If you both care for each other more than you care for yourself, your marriage will endure all.
— Lisa Tawn Bergren
It is not the hand that rocks the cradle that rules the world
—  it is the woman that holds the keys to the kingdom.
They ought to do away with divorce settlements. Instead, both parties should flip a coin. The winner gets to stay where he or she is and keep everything. The loser goes to Paraguay. That´s it.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
I’ve won his heart, but it’s like owning a house in which most of the doors are permanently locked. He wants to shield me from all unpleasantness. And it’s not really marriage—not like the marriage you have with Cam—until he’s willing to share the worst of himself as well as the best of himself.
— Lisa Kleypas, Love in the Afternoon
Flannel shirts should be outlawed for ex husbands
—  I realize this now. Flannel shirts are to women what crotchless panties are to men.
Was his life nothing? Had he nothing to show, no work? He did not count his work, anyone could have done it. What had he known, but the long, marital embrace with his wife. Curious, that this was what his life amounted to! At any rate, it was something, it was eternal. He would say so to anybody, and be proud of it. He lay with his wife in his arms, and she was still his fulfillment, just the same as ever. And that was the be-all and the end-all. Yes, and he was proud of it.
— D.H. Lawrence, The Rainbow
There's a very generous donation in the parish's future if you make this fast. Ten minutes, at the most."Frowning, the man fumbled open his liturgy. "There's an established rite, Your Grace. Marriage must be entered into with solemnity and consideration. I don't know that I can rush--""Ten minutes. One thousand guineas."The liturgy snapped closed. "Then again, what do a few extra minutes signify to an eternal God?" He beckoned Amelia with a fluttering, papery hand. "Make haste, child. You're about to be married.
— Tessa Dare, One Dance with a Duke
The real genesis is forbidden to me, vis-à-vis N´s inability to confess even the mildest transgressions.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
When you fall in love, two people are mad for each other, When these two people get married, others say that they are made for each other, After marriage, the same two people are mad at each other.
— Santosh Avvannavar, The Departing Point: Two people departed...in search of love...leaving love in between
Courtship is romantic. Marriage ... is an act of will," said Pippa, taking a sip of water. "I mean, I adore Herb. But the marriage functions because we will it to. If you leave love to hold everything together, you can forget it.
— Rebecca Miller, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
The first to apologize is the bravest.The first to forgive is the strongest.The first to forget is the happiest.
— -Unknown
But how did you know that it was Stacy?”“There wasn’t a green light flashing, that’s for sure,” he said. “Mostly, I felt I’d met a person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. That I didn’t need to look any further.””“But how can you be sure?” I persisted.“You can’t. There’s not just one person in the world who’s your type. There’s a whole group with the same likes and dislikes. But you want to spend your whole life looking for all of them? You just feel that everything’s right. You’re at peace with yourself.
— Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Now I'll Tell You Everything
I think of marriage differently. A Companionship of like minds. A tie that binds, yes, but in the binding comes strength. A lifetime with your dearest friend as your truest and best companion. That is what it can be. I believe that.
— Julianne Donaldson, Blackmoore
Successful long term relationships are all about power levels. A high power level male will attract and succeed with a high level power female.How do we define those power levels? We can’t, they are inherently in us, and invisible to scientists, accountants, psychologists and spiritualists alike. None can explain the Universe in its entirety, and it is more than chemistry, biology, physics, genetics, horoscopes, religion, in-laws, fame, psychology and spirituality.We may be infatuated by a person, but as soon as we hold their hands, kiss their lips, and especially, make love or have sex with them, their power levels will be instantly exposed.
— Robert  Black
The problem of unmet expectations in marriage is primarily a problem of stereotyping. Each and every human being on this planet is a unique person. Since marriage is inevitably a relationship between two unique people, no one marriage is going to be exactly like any other. Yet we tend to wed with explicit visions of what a “good” marriage ought to be like. Then we suffer enormously from trying to force the relationship to fit the stereotype and from the neurotic guilt and anger we experience when we fail to pull it off.
— M. Scott Peck, In Search Of Stones
When I tell you not to marry without love, I do not advise you to marry for love alone: there are many, many other things to be considered. Keep both heart and hand in your own possession, till you see good reason to part with them; and if such an occasion should never present itself, comfort your mind with this reflection, that though in single life your joys may not be very many, your sorrows, at least, will not be more than you can bear. Marriage may change your circumstances for the better, but, in my private opinion, it is far more likely to produce a contrary result.
— Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
If the Beast gave me a library like he gave to Belle, I’d marry him too.
— Aya Ling, The Ugly Stepsister
A complete sharing between two people is an impossibility and whenever it seems, nevertheless, to exist, it is a narrowing, a mutual agreement which robs either one member or both of his fullest freedom and development. But, once the realization is accepted that, even between the closest human beings, infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky!
— Rainer Maria Rilke
Although sex was something they both regarded as perilous, marriage had, by contrast, seemed safe– a safe house in a world of danger; the ultimate haven of two solitary, fearful souls. When you were single, this was what everyone who was already married was always telling you. Daniel himself had said it to his unmarried friends. It was, however, a lie. Sex had everything to do with violence, that was true, and marriage was at once a container for the madness between men and women and a fragile hedge against it, as religion was to death, and the laws of physics to the immense quantity of utter emptiness of which the universe was made. But there was nothing at all safe about marriage. It was a doubtful enterprise, a voyage in an untested craft, across a hostile ocean, with a map that was a forgery and with no particular destination but the grave.
— Michael Chabon, Werewolves in Their Youth
I would encourage you to make your own investigation of the one whom, as He died, prayed for those who killed Him: 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do.' That is love's ultimate expression.
— Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate
As Romeo and Juliet found to their cost, marriage is never just about two people falling in love, it is about families.
— Marina Lewycka, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard's kitchen mat.
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
People keep on getting married. Evidently hope is eternal in the human breast.
— Sherwood Anderson, Death in the Woods and Other Stories
If I had felt then as I feel now, or as I felt a few years after I had married her, nothing could possibly have persuaded me to marry a woman who smoked. Dates, yes. Sexual adventures, yes. But to pin myself permanently inside closed quarters with a smoker? Never. Never. Never. Beauty wouldn't count, sweetness wouldn't count, suitability in every other respect wouldn't count.
— Isaac Asimov, I. Asimov
It is not we as individuals, then, who must bend uncomfortably around the institution of marriage; rather, it is the institution of marriage that has to bend uncomfortably around us.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
Two human beings anchored to one another are like two ships shaken by waves
—  their carcases collide with one another and creak.
Then, you must fall each into your proper place. You'll do your business, and she, if she's worthy of you, will do hers; but it's your business to please yourself, and hers to please you.
— Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey
I was stunned. I pulled the phone away and looked quizzically at the hole-punched speaker. Aside from the blood obligation to be my sister's maid of honor, it had never occured to me that I would get asked to be in anyone's wedding. I thought we had reached an understanding, the institution of marriage and I. Weddings are the like the triathlon of female friendship: the Shower, the Bachelorette Party, and the Main Event. It's the Iron Woman and most people never make it through. They fall off their bikes or choke on ocean water. I figured if I valued my life, I'd stay away from weddings and they'd stay away from me.
— Sloane Crosley, I Was Told There'd Be Cake
(On getting married at 19) We told ourselves we had forever and we never looked back. The problem was that we never really looked ahead.
— Crystal Woods, Write like no one is reading
Conversely, I though humiliation would be everything, but it´s such a nothing.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
This was fun. We should find out we're still married more often.""Why, so every day can be a special new plunge into hell?""Nobody I'd rather burn with than you, babe.
— Erin McCarthy, Hot Finish
You must remember that you are my prime treasure (and always have been).'Emma Darwin to husband Charles
— Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith
LOVE IS A FLOWERTreat your relationshipAs if you are growingThe most beautiful sacred flower.Keep watering it,Tend to the roots,And always make sureThe petals are full of colorAnd are never curling.Once you neglect your plant,It will die,As will your relationship.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
So much of marriage was implicit and nonverbal. Had I gotten so complacent I'd forgotten to communicate?
— Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care
My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me
— Winston S. Churchill
Grow up, Bailey.""That is precisely what I'm doing," Bailey says. "I don't care if you don't understand that. Staying here won't make me happy. It will make you happy because you're insipid and boring, and an insipid, boring life is enough for you. It's not enough for me. It will never be enough for me. So I'm leaving. Do me a favor and marry someone who will take decent care of the sheep.
— Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one sixth of the population of democratic America is denied it's privileges by the law of the land. What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of it's humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?
— Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom
There are guys who grow up thinking they'll settle down some distant time in the future, and there are guys who are ready for marriage as soon as they meet the right person. The former bore me, mainly because they're pathetic; and the latter, quite frankly, are hard to find. But it's the serious ones I'm interested in, and it takes time to find a guy like that whom I'm equally interested in. I mean, if the relationship can't survive the long term, why on earth would it be worth my time and energy for the short term?
— Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song
I'll have no husband, if you be not he.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
To make one, there must be two.
— W.H. Auden
Commitment is Circumstances
— Leju Thomas
Yes, as Rhett had prophesied, marriage could be a lot of fun. Not only was it fun but she was learning many things. That was odd in itself, because Scarlett had thought life could teach her no more. Now she felt like a child, every day on the brink of a new discovery.
— Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
But Katie knew it was a sin, had known from the moment she made the decision to lie with Adam. However, the transgression wasn't making love without the sanction of marriage. It was that for the first time in her life, Katie had put herself first. Put her own wants and needs above everything and everyone else.
— Jodi Picoult, Plain Truth
You are curious and quick, you have a deft mind, and for some unaccountable reason, people tell you things -- useful things.
— Deanna Raybourn
Love is greater than marriage, love is the greater thing while marriage, though noble and honorable, is questionable in its origins. I question the creations of man, I do not question the masterpieces of God.
— C. JoyBell C.
But marrying within one's own family can get monotonous. One has heard all the same family stories, knows all the jokes and all the same recipes. No novelty.
— Margaret George, The Memoirs of Cleopatra
Even when a girl is married she still never completely leaves her mother and father's home.
— Anna Godbersen, Envy
Nothing's really changed since then, except that now any children we have might be wizards themselves, and I'll be hopelessly outnumbered.
— Eilis O'Neal, The False Princess
Adrian Mole's father was so angry that so many pepole got divorced nowadays. HE had been unhappilly married for 30 years, why should everybody else get away?
— Sue Townsend
I tried, I really tried, to stick with it. I planned to grow old with this man and possibly die in his arms.
— Brenda Perlin
My second wife - I was still young then - she left me, and I made the mistake of winning her back. It took me years to lose her again after that. She was a good woman. It is not easy to lose a good woman. If one must marry it is better to marry a bad woman.
— Graham Greene, Loser Takes All
Marriage is the gold standard of all relationships. It's the currency by which everything is valued.
— Frank Delaney, The Matchmaker of Kenmare
Married people grow like each other.
— Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
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
When I was a child, an angel came to say,A true friend is coming my warrior to sweep you away,It won’t be easy the path because it leads through hell,But if you’re faithful, it will be the greatest story to tell,You will move God’s daughters to a place of hope,Your story will teach everyone there is nothing they can’t cope,You will suffer a lot, but not one tear will you waste,Because for all that you do for me, you will be graced,For I am bringing you someone that wants to travel your trail,Someone you already met when you passed through heaven’s veil,A warrior, a friend that whispers your heart’s song,Someone that will run with you and pull your spirit along,Don’t you see the timing was love's fated throw,Because I put you both there to help one another grow,I am the writer of all great stories your chapters were written by me,You suffered, you cried because I needed you to see,That your faith in my ending goes far beyond two,It was going to change more hearts than both of you knew,So hush my child and wait for my loving hand,The last chapter is not written and still in the sand,It is up to you to finish, before the tide washes it away,All that is in your heart, I’ve put there for you to say,This is not about winning, loss or pain,I made you the way you are because true love stories are insane,I wrote you in heaven as I sat on its sandy shore,You know with all of my heart I loved you both more,There is no better ending two people seeing each other's heart,Together your spirits will never drift apart,Because two kindred spirits is what I made you to be,The waves and beach crashing together because of-- ME.
— Shannon L. Alder
Every so often I would look at my women friends who were happily married and didn't cook, and I would always find myself wondering how they did it. Would anyone love me if I couldn't cook? I always thought cooking was part of the package: Step right up, it's Rachel Samstat, she's bright, she's funny and she can cook!
— Nora Ephron, Heartburn
It is absurd to expect the inclinations and wishes of two human beings to coincide, through any long period of time. To oblige them to act and live together is to subject them to some inevitable potion of thwarting, bickering, and unhappiness.
— William Godwin
I learned that day that there is no more lonely state than being in a lonely marriage.
— Julie Metz, Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal
Sam, I want that to be us. I want to stand up in church in front of our family and friends and make you my wife. I want them to listen to me say my vows to you and watch me slide my ring on your finger. I want them to see you wear my mark. I want to marry you, Sam.
— P.J. Fiala, Second Chances
The web of marriage is made by propinquity, in the day to day living side by side, looking outward in the same direction. It is woven in space and in time of the substance of life itself.
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh
The forsaking of all others is a keeping of faith, not just with the chosen one, but with the ones forsaken. The marriage vow unites not just a woman and a man with each other; it unites each of them with the community in a vow of sexual responsibility toward all others. The whole community is married, realizes its essential unity, in each of its marriages...Marital fidelity, that is, involves the public or institutional as well as the private aspect of marriage. One is married to marriage as well as to one's spouse. But one is married also to something vital of one's own that does not exist before the marriage: one's given word. It now seems to me that the modern misunderstanding of marriage involves a gross misunderstanding and underestimation of the seriousness of giving one's word, and of the dangers of breaking it once it is given. Adultery and divorce now must be looked upon as instances of that disease of word-breaking, which our age justifies as "realistic" or "practical" or "necessary," but which is tattering the invariably single fabric of speech and trust.(pg.117, "The Body and the Earth")
— Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
There's no more usual basis of union than mutual misunderstanding.
— Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
Married life had taught him the futility of arguing with a female in a dark-brown mood.
— Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire
a real partnership in which all parties help all others to be more fully themselves
— Derrick Jensen, Endgame, Vol. 1: The Problem of Civilization
Oh dear... it really is rather disillusioning. When one's friends marry for money they are wretched, when they marry for love it is worse. What is the proper thing to marry for, I should like to know?
— Nancy Mitford, Christmas Pudding
Marriage is more about work than about divine luck, more about finding someone to love than about finding someone to meet your own laundry list of personal needs.
— Mark Gungor
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, I Capture the Castle
...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
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, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
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, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
As is often the case, the sole person not left speechless in awe by my brilliance is my own beloved wife.
— Jack Womack, Let's Put the Future Behind Us
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, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot
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, The Space Between Us
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, David Copperfield
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, Elroy Nights
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, The Wedding Quilt
Will you marry me, my darling ?Do I have options, you bastard ?
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
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, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
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, The Book Thief
May your heart be mine, may my heart be yours. May your sorrows be mine, may my joys be yours.
— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Oleander Girl
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, Red Hook Road
The emotional place where a marriage begins is not nearly as important as the emotional place where a marriage finds itself toward the end, after many years of partnership.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
Marriage, n.: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
— Ambrose Bierce
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, sTORI Telling
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, The Astral
In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.
— Samuel Butler, The Note Books of 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, Mrs. Miniver
Most marriages don't add two people together. They subtract one from the other.
— Ian Fleming, Diamonds Are Forever
…marriage, they say, halves one's rights and doubles one's duties.
— Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
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., Galápagos
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.	And 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.	Her 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, Little Women