Marriage In Fiction Quotes

It is noteworthy that few works of fiction make marriage their central concern. As Northrup Frye puts it, with his accustomed clarity: 'The heroine who becomes a bride, and eventually, one assumes, a mother, on the last page of a romance, has accommodated herself to the cyclical movement: by her marriage ... she completes the cycle and passes out of the story. We are usually given to understand that a happy and well-adjusted sexual life does not concern us as readers.' Fiction has largely rejected marriage as a subject, except in those instances where it is presented as a history of betrayal
at worst an Updike hell, at best when Auden speaks of it as a game calling for 'patience, foresight, maneuver, like war, like marriage.' Marriage is very different than fiction presents it as being. We rarely examine its unromantic aspects. ~ Carolyn G. Heilbrun

I am always in the hope to express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors - colors which marry each other ... complement each other as a man and a woman do. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

I loved all the Hardy Boy books. Once I collected my paperboy money each Friday I'd walk into town, make the rounds of all the local thrift shops (where you could buy a used hardback for a quarter.) I'd always get excited swinging open the front cover of a newly discovered book in the series. Let's solve a mystery! And investigate the long-abandoned water tower north of town. They were a lot of fun. And science fiction, although these were paperbacks. I stopped going to church when I was about ten. I'd get dressed and go out the front door telling my mom I was going to church, but I'd have a science fiction paperback jammed in the back pocket of my trousers. Once I got near the church (St. Mary's on Greenwich Avenue), I'd veer down a side street, pull out my book, and stumble along the sidewalks for an hour, visiting another planet, sometimes another galaxy. My mother eventually found out about my deception - a friend told her she had spotted me walking, reading, when I was supposed to be at mass. I explained to my mother I didn't want to attend church anymore, and she accepted that. If it made her sad, she never showed me. She was actually an incredibly good mother, which I realize more and more as I age. ~ Ralph Robert Moore

Sully's, on South Prospect, was the quintessential biker-bar, complete with hefty, leather-clad Harley worshippers, and stringy-haired heroin-addicted women who made the rounds among the bikers. Its décor was decidedly Medieval Garage Sale, with a dose of Americana thrown in. An old motorcycle carcass dangled from the vaulted section of the beamed ceiling, and the wood plank floors were littered with butts, scarred by bottle caps and splattered with homogenized bodily fluids. The only light to be had was from neon, dying sconces, and lit cigarettes. Various medieval swords perched on each wall, reminiscent of the times of Beowulf and Fire Dragons on the Barrow. ~ Kelli Jae Baeli

Both agree in repudiating "marriage for love"; but the idealist repudiates it in the name of love, the critic in the name of marriage. Love, for the idealist Ibsen, is a passion which loses its virtue when it reaches its goal, which inspires only while it aspires, and flags bewildered when it attains. Marriage, for the critic Ibsen, is an institution beset with pitfalls into which those are surest to step who enter it blinded with love. ~ Henrik Ibsen

I think in our time, you know, so much of the information we get is pre-polarized. Fiction has a way of reminding us that we actually are very similar in our emotions and our neurology and our desires and our fears, so I think it's a nice way to neutralize that polarization. ~ George Saunders

So it is in our HEART, not in our sexualness, that we human beings think and decide how to live - even if the decision is to indulge in venery of whatever sort. A man sees the complementarity of woman and man not through the eyes of lust but in his heart. Jacob's lust for Rachel distracted him from perceiving the virtue of Leah, a virtue to complement or complete his. It's in his heart, not through the lust of his eyes, that a man sees or learns to see the complementation of woman and man. If a man is 'homosexual' or has little lust toward attractive women, this is no obstacle to his perceiving woman as his complement or helper. ~ Jonathan Mills

You are working up to Mr. Fantastic Fiction levels of Zombie Expert, which is like playing Guitar Hero on some level that actually melts the guitar controller, burning your fingers with searing hot plastic till you scream in pain. Only with words. And zombies. ~ Libba Bray

I detested that people who already had everything they could possibly want would step on others who had nothing. Would use them and crush them. I'd lived my life mainly in the streets and found out the hard way that people who could have helped just hurt us. ~ Christine Feehan

Now I think of breaking up as moving. Imagine you have your own house, full of your own boxes. A person you meet has his own house, full of his own boxes. When you have a relationship with that person, you shack up in a third house, into which you can each put any number of your boxes. You shouldn't move them all in at once, or else you will seem too eager. And don't dawdle too much either, or you will seem skittish about commitment. You kind of aim to match each other's pace, so that the power balance feels fair and equal. Happy marriage--at least ideally--would be the situation in which both parties enthusiastically choose to keep all of their boxes in their shared house. Conversely, when someone starts to doubt the relationship, he might move a box or two back into his own house, just in case. While he's weighing his options, he may transport a few more boxes to the safety of his own home. When he's ready to take back his final few boxes, he breaks up with you. If you were too infatuated to see it coming, there you are, with all of your boxes in the shared house, and none in the security of your own home. ~ Tyler Oakley

There comes a crossroads in every marriage where you grow together or grow apart. I outgrew Len. He wanted me to be in that leather jumpsuit for the rest of my life and do nothing else. He constrained me. It got to a point where the marriage died or I did. ~ Suzi Quatro

When ready to settle down: women are more interested in where the man is going; men are more interested in where the woman has been. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

For people who have been raised to expect books to be 100 percent pleasurable and to make that pleasure effortless, it is hard for them to read and appreciate serious fiction. That's not good. The problem isn't that today's readership is "dumb," I don't think. Just that TV and the commercial-art culture's trained it to be sort of lazy and childish in its expectations. But it makes trying to engage today's readers both imaginatively and intellectually unprecedentedly hard. ~ David Foster Wallace

I was never forced to write. At least, I was never forced or even encouraged to write fiction. Creative writing wasn't in the curriculum at my school when I was in sixth grade. ~ Rodman Philbrick

As any opera fan knows, lawyers and judges do not fare well in most operas. Just consider the productions of 'Andrea Chenier,' 'Aida, Norma,' 'Billy Budd,' 'Peter Grimes,' 'The Crucible,' 'Lost in the Stars,' 'The Marriage of Figaro,' 'The Makropulos Case' and Wagner's 'Ring' cycle. Around 1810, the theme of justice emerged in opera. ~ Karen DeCrow

…everybody should write one book. There is a book in each of us. It is just a matter of bringing it out. Some people are capable and willing to do that, some are not." (Ch.20) ~ Stevan V. Nikolic

Find a woman who makes you feel more alive. She won't make life perfect but she'll make it infinitely more interesting. And then love her with all that's in you. ~ Gayle Roper

Writing is very castrating in the moment. Fiction in general, it has no function, nobody asks for it. ~ Etgar Keret

One of the classic settings in fiction, a little world as reassuring as imperial St Petersburg or Victorian London, is suburban Connecticut in the 1950s. If you close your eyes, you can picture autumn leaves drifting down on quiet streets, you can see commuters in fedoras streaming off the platforms of the New Haven Line, you can hear the tinkle of the evening's first pitcher of martinis; and hear the ugly fights then, after midnight; and smell the desperate or despairing sex.
(Introduction to "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit") ~ Jonathan Franzen

It's complicated," I said in defense, hands going up to show surrender.
"Talk slowly," Jenna retorted derisively.
"Okay, I deserved that," I admitted. ~ Laura Kreitzer

They again kissed each other and fell asleep. The patch of light on the ceiling now seemed to be assuming the shape of a terrified eye, that stared wildly and fixedly upon the pale, slumbering couple who reeked with crime beneath their very sheets, and dreamt they could see a rain of blood falling in big drops, which turned into golden coins as they plashed upon the floor. ~ Emile Zola

You might think lunchtime at Willing would be different from other high schools. That everyone would be welcome at any table, united by the knowledge that we, at Willing, are the Elite, the Chosen, stellar across the board.
Um.No.Of course not.High school is high school, regardless of how much it costs or how many kids springboard into the Ivies. And nowhere is social status more evident than in the dining room (freshman and sophomores at noon; upperclassmen at one). Because, of course, Willing doesn't have a cafeteria, or even a lunch hall. It has a dining room, complete with oak tables and paneled walls that are covered with plaques going all the way back to 1869, the year Edith Willing Castoe (Edward's aunt) founded the school to "prepare Philadelphia's finest young ladies for Marriage,for Leadership, and for Service to the World." Really. Until the sixties, the school's boastful slogan was "She's a Willing Girl."
Almost 150 years, three first ladies, and one attorney general-not to mention the arrival of boys-later, female members of the student body are still called Willing Girls. You'd think someone in the seventies would have objected to that and changed it. But Willing has survived the seventies of two different centuries. They'll probably still be calling us Willing Girls in 2075. It's a school that believes in Tradition, sometimes regardless of how stupid that Tradition is. ~ Melissa Jensen

In the end, there is nothing a man can do that a woman can't, except be a father. ~ Frank Pittman

In America a woman loses her independence for ever in the bonds of matrimony. While there is less constraint on girls there than anywhere else, a wife submits to stricter obligations. For the former, her father's house is a home of freedom and pleasure; for the latter, her husband's is almost a cloister. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

LOUIS SACHAR is the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Holes, winner of the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, and the Christopher Award. He is also the author of Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake; Small Steps, winner of the Schneider Family Book Award; and The Cardturner, a Publishers Weekly Best Book, a Parents' Choice Gold Award recipient, and an ALA-YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults book. His books for younger readers include There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom, The Boy Who Lost His Face, Dogs Don't Tell Jokes, and the Marvin Redpost series, among many others. ~ Louis Sachar

Reflections of the battlements shimmered in the deep green moat, casting an image of enduring strength, an image that defied the very siege of time. ~ Karen Azinger

Most historical accounts were written by fallible scholars, using incomplete or biased resource materials; written through the scholars' own conscious or unconscious predilections; published by textbook or printing companies that have a stake in maintaining a certain set of beliefs; subtly influenced by entities of government and society - national administrations, state education departments, local school boards, etcetera - that also wish to maintain certain sets of beliefs. To be blunt about it, much of the history of many countries and states is based on delusion, propaganda, misinformation, and omission. ~ James Alexander Thom

The clouds behind the castle darkened and rolled, embracing the mountain and the white towers. And as the princess became more animated, the clouds rolled faster and faster. They twisted and deepened in color until a deafening crack sliced through the air. ~ Brittney Joy

Moving slightly beyond the shade of the seventh column, the old man carefully positioned the shopping cart so that its four wheels were perfectly aligned with the expansion cracks in the sidewalk. Then, one by one, he lined up all seven plastic bags in the cart so that they, too, were parallel to the cracks. The bags were important for they contained the sum of everything he owned. Next, he felt the inside pocket of his old jacket for his Bible. He knew all of the Old Testament by heart and most of the New Testament, but he needed to feel its physical presence. It was there. ~ Barbara Casey

You cannot begin to understand the failure of marriage - or the living of these ideas commitment or covenant - without considering and factoring in the devaluing of fatherhood. The two are inextricably linked and dependent. ~ H. Kirk Rainer

I think about our marriage. The weft of our seventeen years together was so easily torn apart. Our love was as ordinary as the identical welcome mats found in the suburbs we grew up in. The fact that our bodies, our thoughts, our hearts had once moved in rhythm with each other had only fooled us into thinking we were special. ~ Amy Tan

Phyllis, then seventeen, had grown into a lovely girl, although she was still in school uniform.
Thus, Hera made it known that her beautiful daughter`s virginity was once more for sale & she had set the asking price at twenty thousand dollars. She would use the proceeds from the sale to clear her debts, & the surplus, she would give to Vicky in compensation for the three thousand dollars she had paid four years earlier to preserve Phyllis` virginity.[MMT] ~ Nicholas Chong

In all of Western civilization, there have been societies that celebrating the homosexuality, the ancient Greeks. But they, in fact, protected the institution of marriage as a union between one man and one woman. They got the joke. And the American people get the joke. ~ Ken Blackwell

In marriage there must be complete companionship and concern for each other on the part of both husband and wife, in health and in sickness and at all times, because they entered upon the marriage for this reason as well as to produce offspring. When such caring for one another is perfect, and the married couple provide it for one another, and each strives to outdo the other, then this is marriage as it ought to be and deserving of emulation, since it is a noble union. But when one partner looks to his own interests alone and neglects the other's, or (by Zeus) the other is so minded that he lives in the same house, but keeps his mind on what is outside it, and does not wish to pull together with his partner or to cooperate, then inevitably the union is destroyed, and although they live together their common interests fare badly, and either they finally get divorced from one another or they continue on in an existence that is worse than loneliness. ~ Musonius Rufus

Personal freedom and interpersonal relationships in marriage are positive aspects of growth in marriage. At the same time they can pose a serious danger in family harmony and degradation of some of the fundamental values if carried too far. ~ Anonymous

SCIENCE FICTION IS OFTEN DESCRIBED, AND EVEN DEFINED, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the here-and-now, purify and intensify it for dramatic effect, and extend it into the future. "If this goes on, this is what will happen." A prediction is made. Method and results much resemble those of a scientist who feeds large doses of a purified and concentrated food additive to mice, in order to predict what may happen to people who eat it in small quantities for a long time. The outcome seems almost inevitably to be cancer. So does the outcome of extrapolation. Strictly extrapolative works of science fiction generally arrive about where the Club of Rome arrives: somewhere between the gradual extinction of human liberty and the total extinction of terrestrial life.

This may explain why many people who do not read science fiction describe it as "escapist," but when questioned further, admit they do not read it because "it's so depressing. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

In sickness and in sickness. That is what I wish for you. Don't seek or expect miracles. There are no miracles. Not anymore. And there are no cures for the hurt that hurts most. There is only the medicine of believing each other's pain, and being present for it. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

A reader who quarrels with postulates, who dislikes Hamlet because he does not believe that there are ghosts or that people speak in pentameters, clearly has no business in literature. He cannot distinguish fiction from fact, and belongs in the same category as the people who send checks to radio stations for the relief of suffering heroines in soap operas. ~ Northrop Frye

Jo told me once that she was an old woman everywhere but in her studio. "There I'm only myself," she'd said. Standing in the middle of masterpieces that only Jo had ever seen and touched, I knew what she meant. ~ Laura Anderson Kurk

While a good story must give me a role, and must extend beyond my horizons, it need not be true. A story can be pure fiction, and yet provide me with an identity and make me feel that my life has meaning. Indeed, to the best of our scientific understanding, none of the thousands of stories that different cultures, religions and tribes have invented throughout history is true. They are all just human inventions. If you ask for the true meaning of life and get a story in reply, know that this is the wrong answer. The exact details don't really matter. Any story is wrong, simply for being a story. The universe just does not work like a story.
So why do people believe in these fictions? One reason is that their personal identity is built on the story. People are taught to believe in the story from early childhood. They hear it from their parents, their teachers, their neighbours and the general culture long before they develop the intellectual and emotional independence necessary to question and verify such stories. By the time their intellect matures, they are so heavily invested in the story, that they are far more likely to use their intellect to rationalise the story than to doubt it. Most people who go on identity quests are like children going treasure hunting. They find only what their parents have hidden for them in advance.
Second, not only our personal identities but also our collective institutions are built on the story. Consequently, it is extremely frighte ~ Yuval Noah Harari

We're a bundle of incompatible parts, and we make up stories about ourselves to disguise the fact. The mental unity of the individual is a fiction. There is simply, in the human machine, a multitude of loosely linked behaviour systems which take control of the body and participate in a common delusion of being one single self ~ David Lodge

An immersive murder mystery wrapped in an emotionally astute look at the burden of a town's moral history." -- Kirkus Reviews ~ Richard Snodgrass

Grandpa said that we could solve a lot of the world's problems if we considered cats and dogs edible. Like the neighbor's dog who goes to the bathroom in his flower garden. And know what else? ~ Cole Alpaugh

«"I meant, tell me all about this steampunk thing!" Gavin broke in. "How does that concept work out for you people, here in Brazil?"
"You don't know about steampunk?" shouted Xavier, dubiously.
"Well, I don't read many novels! Because I'm kinda fully-booked already! But, obviously, you're a science fiction writer at a Futurist conference! And I can see that you're all dressed up like some fancy guy from the past, from the 19th century! So what gives with that? What is all that about?"» ~ Bruce Sterling

Marriage has failed because you could not rise to the standard that you were expecting of marriage, of the concept of marriage. You were brutal, you were, you were full of jealousies, you were full of lust; you had never known really what love is. In the name of love, you tried everything which is just the opposite of love: possessiveness, domination, power. ~ Rajneesh

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 decline in American pride, patriotism, and piety can be directly
attributed to the extensive reading of so-called 'science fiction' by our
young people. This poisonous rot about creatures not of God's making,
societies of 'aliens' without a good Christian among them, and raw sex
between unhuman beings with three heads and God alone knows what sort of
reproductive apparatus keeps our young people from realizing the true will
of God. ~ Jerry Falwell

Loki," I said.
"Hey, Princess." He smiled dazedly as he looked up at me. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." I smiled and shook my head. "Not anymore."
"What's this?" He took my hair and held it out so i could see. A curl near the front had gone completely silver. "I take a nap, and you go gray?"
"You didn't take a nap." I laughed. "Don't you remember what happened?"
He furrowed his brow, trying to remember, and understanding flashed in his eyes.
"I remember ... " Loki touched my face. "I remember that I love you." I bent down, kissing him full on the mouth, and he held me to him. ~ Amanda Hocking

You can only afford to be generous if you actually have some money in the bank to give. In the same way, if your only source of love and meaning is your spouse, then anytime he or she fails you, it will not just cause grief but a psychological cataclysm. If, however, you know something of the work of the Spirit in your life, you have enough love "in the bank" to be generous to your spouse even when you are not getting much affection or kindness at the moment. ~ Timothy Keller