Married Life Quotes

Really, this horrid House of Commons quite ruins our husbands for us. I think the Lower House by far the greatest blow to a happy married life that there has been since that terrible thing called the Higher Education of Women was invented. ~ Oscar Wilde

I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother. ~ Martha Gellhorn

There was altogether too much candor in married life; it was an indelicate modern idea, and frequently led to upsets in a household, if not divorce ... ~ Muriel Spark

JACK
That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won't want to know Bunbury.
ALGERNON
Then your wife will. You don't seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none.
JACK
That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.
ALGERNON
Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time. ~ Oscar Wilde

There's a honey-do-list for you on your nightstand in case you get to feeling like I managed just fine without you. And a wish list of movies I want to see, and books I'd like you to buy me." She bit her lip. "Actually I bought most of the books and called them gifts, so maybe you should give me back that list to update once more. ~ Dee Henderson

I found that married life gave me the necessary freedom to follow an ambition which had been with me since childhood; and so I started to write in earnest. ~ Jean Plaidy

He doesn't stop talking for most of the three-hour flight about his time in "'Nam." Finally the conversation slows, and I ask him what he's done since leaving the army.

He sums it up in three words: "I'm in insurance."

And that's it. That's all he has to say about the following forty years.

I think I may be in a similar situation with the whole marriage bit. Three words: "I got married. ~ Rick Springfield

Inventors don't have time for married life. ~ Nikola Tesla

Maybe he, like Mum, believed God had delivered three extra children, one-two-three, as a sign of His plan for this couple's long, long friendship. But God had also delivered to him the Oxford Paper Company, and the foamy river it sat upon. And the long working hours it required. And the poison it put in the air. Three more girls from God might portend a long married life, but a multi-acre paper mill, with much heat but no heart, could make for still competition if it decided to bestow the opposite.
Maybe it was the work. ~ Monica Wood

Most of us save our best behavior for those whom we barely know and show our worst side to those we know the best. ~ Sheila Wray Gregoire

I must say, Graystone, you are surviving married life very nicely." Peter helped himself to claret from the decanter that had been set out in the library.
"Thank you, Sheldrake. I flatter myself that not every man could survive being married to Augusta. ~ Amanda Quick

I mean, on the television, I've got to continue to be Star Jones Reynolds. And I enjoy that. But in my real life, I'm a wife now. You can't really be bossy when you're married. ~ Star Jones

It is one of my decided opinions that married people ought to have no one, be the tie ever so close and dear, living permanently with them, to break the sacred duality - no, let me say the unity of their home. ~ Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Married life must agree with you."

"Oh, yes," she replied. "It's been what every girl dreams of, what with all the gossip and scandal, and the awkward dinner parties with family members who flirt with one's new husband. No to mention capped off by a nice little break-in and attempted kidnapping. Truly, if I'd known it was going to be this much fun, I would have married a long time ago. ~ Vanessa Kelly

If asked to list my ten favorite American fiction writers, Gail Godwin would be among them. In this, her latest ... she evokes in a short book the long married life of two artists. Evenings at Five is a strong tale of love-after-death. ~ Ned Rorem

This household happiness did not come all at once, but John and Meg had found the key to it, and each year of married life taught them how to use it, unlocking the treasuries of real home love and mutual helpfulness, which the poorest may possess, and the richest cannot buy. This is the sort of shelf on which young wives and mothers may consent to be laid, safe from the restless fret and fever of the world, finding loyal lovers in the little sons and daughters who cling to them, undaunted by sorrow, poverty, or age, walking side by side, through fair and stormy weather, with a faithful friend, who is, in the true sense of the good old Saxon word, the 'house-band,' and learning, as Meg learned, that a woman's happiest kingdom is home, her highest honor the art of ruling it not as a queen, but as a wise wife and mother. ~ Louisa May Alcott

Marriage is the Rubik's Cube of the 21st Century - something young people are fascinated with but have no idea how to do. ~ Stewart Stafford

A strange effect of marriage, such as the nineteenth century has made it! The boredom of married life inevitably destroys love, when love has preceded marriage. And yet, as a philosopher has observed, it speedily brings about, among people who are rich enough not to have to work, an intense boredom with all quiet forms of enjoyment. And it is only dried up hearts, among women, that it does not predispose to love. ~ Stendhal

And when Mary nodded, Pauline said, "You'd better hurry then, you know how how is," and laughed to show she would not be married to bald John Keane for all the tea in China. In her laugh was every confidence Mary had ever shared with Pauline about her husband's failings, every unguarded criticism, every angry, impromptu, frustrated critique of his personality, his manners, his sometimes morbid, sometimes inscrutable, sometimes impatient ways. A repository, Pauline and her laugh, for every moment in thier marriage when Mary Keane had not loved her husband, when love itself had seemed a misapprehension, a delusion (a stranger standing outside of Schrafft's transformed into an answered prayer), and marriage
which Pauline had had sense enough to spurn
simply an awkward pact with a stranger, any stranger, John or George, Tom, Dick, or Harry.
A repository, Pauline and her laugh, her knowing eye, for all that Mary Keane should have kept to herself. ~ Alice McDermott

The days were sunny, the nights were star-studded. Indeed married life was strawberries for breakfast and loving all the time. ~ Marabel Morgan

When was the last time you looked at anything, solely, and concentratedly, and for its own sake? Ordinary life passes in a near blur. If we go to the theatre or the cinema, the images before us change constantly, and there is the distraction of language. Our loved ones are so well known to us that there is no need to look at them, and one of the gentle jokes of married life is that we do not. ~ Jeanette Winterson

We must give people the chance to change. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

He had swept her off her feet then, and was all charm and charisma but then the magic slowly diminished and finally died due to his secret betrayals over time. Thousands of little resentments had replaced the early warmth. But their hearts, although heavy with bitterness and anger at the failed expectations, had gotten used to the solace of each other's company that often comes with years of living together, and they never stopped performing this morning ritual of their married life. ~ Neena H. Brar

Marriage is like a series of opposing reflections, inverse images getting ever smaller like nesting dolls, each one of your trying to squeeze yourself smaller to fit inside the hopes of the other, until one of you cracks or stops existing. ~ Jacob M. Appel

So how's married life, Abigail? ~ Jenn Roseton

When you live with a woman you learn something every day. So far I have learned that long hair will clog up the shower drain befor you can say "Liquid-Plumr"; that it is not advisable to clip something out of the newspaper before your wife has read it, even if the newspaper in question is a week old; that I am the only person in our two-person household who can eat the same thing for dinner three nights in a row without pouting; and that headphones were invented to preserve spouses from each other's musical excesses. ~ Audrey Niffenegger

It's been my experience that the first few days of married life women are blind because they want to be and after that because they have to be. ~ Mary Roberts Rinehart

Researchers warn us against walking out on married life without a dang good reason. ~ Ariel Gore

He thinks I'm a good cook, and will eat anything I set before him. He is regular in his habits and not once through our married life have I been left at home heel-tapping waiting for my 'hubby' to come home. We ~ Susan Williams

She had never been able to stand her husband, though not for one minute in their married life had she permitted this to make her unhappy. Only people who are fond of somebody can ever be unhappy, she had told her daughter before her wedding. ~ Anna Seghers

A wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps eighty percent of her expectations. There is always the other twenty percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much. She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the eighty percent, and both of them will be happy. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

Embrace each other with love, smiles and warm hug. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

We spent our whole married life in the ultra-competitive world of professional football, Lauren and I had always tried to view it through God's eyes. As much fun as it was to be winning, we tried not to get caught up in it. We knew that our family life and our faith walk were more important. ~ Tony Dungy

Love seeks the best. Love endures all times. Love never changes. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Married life had taught Toran the futility of arguing with a female in dark-brown mood. He shrugged, and left her. ~ Isaac Asimov

It is lack of communication that leads to unhappy marriage. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

There is some concern among the Brethren that some of you who are still single may not be moving in the direction of preparing yourselves to seek out and commit to an eternal companion. This applies both to young men and to young women. The greater burden, however, rests upon the young men because in our society it is a responsibility of young men to initiate activities that lead to courtship and to marriage.

The doctrine of the Church is very clear and it anticipates that individuals will be married in the temple and rear a righteous family as guided by the inspired document we call "The Proclamation on the Family." . . .

Speaking of the obligation of men to marry, President Joseph Fielding Smith taught as follows:

"Any young man who carelessly neglects this great commandment to marry, or who does not marry because of a selfish desire to avoid the responsibilities which married life will bring, is taking a course which is displeasing in the sight of God. Exaltation means responsibility. There can be no exaltation without it.

"If a man refuses to take upon himself the responsibilities of married life, because he desires to avoid the cares and troubles which naturally will follow, he is taking a course which may bar him forever from the responsibilities which are held in reserve for those who are willing to keep in full the commandments of the Lord. . . .

"According to modern custom, it is the place of the man to take the ~ Earl C. Tingey

I love Frank Ocean. We're going to get married. In true life, we should get married. ~ Alex Newell

The best part of married life is the fights. The rest is merely so-so. ~ Thornton Wilder

The actual person with whom you live is bound to be, in a curiuos way, invisible, in just the same way as yourself, are invisible; all you can do is sense their presence, feel them within you, and in turn expand in them. The word love, comapred to that has little meaning. ~ Jakob Wasser Mann

There must be some other possibility than death or lifelong penance ... some meeting, some intersection of lines; and some cowardly, hopeful geometer in my brain tells me it is the angle at which two lines prop each other up, the leaning-together from the vertical which produces the false arch. For lack of a keystone, the false arch may be as much as one can expect in this life. Only the very lucky discover the keystone. ~ Wallace Stegner

Married life had taught him the futility of arguing with a female in a dark-brown mood. ~ Isaac Asimov

There was a lot to be said for the discipline of married life. It forced one to learn the art of compromise, and to remedy the flaws in one's nature. ~ John Connolly

The happiness of married life depends upon making small sacrifices with readiness and cheerfulness. ~ John Selden

Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

As a man, I've learned that there is nothing easier in married life than pleasing your wife with your cooking. ~ Robert Breault

He wants to lie down like a couple? That's fine - this can be his first experience with the wifely cold shoulder. Welcome to married life, Raahosh. ~ Ruby Dixon

Do not live life without a spark of love. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Their country-place, Styles Court, had been purchased by Mr. Cavendish early in their married life. He had been completely under his wife's ascendancy, so much so that, on dying, he left the place to her for her lifetime, as well as the larger part of his income; an arrangement that was distinctly unfair to his two sons. ~ Agatha Christie

The touchstone for family life is still the legendary 'and so they were married and lived happily ever after.' It is no wonder that any family falls short of this ideal. ~ Salvador Minuchin

Yet, when the boy himself assumes married life, he will honor his mother above his wife, and show her often a real affection and deference. Then it is that the woman comes into her own, ruling indoors with an iron hand, stoutly maintaining the ancient tradition, and, forgetful of her former misery, visiting upon the slender shoulders of her little daughters-in-law all the burdens and the wrath that fell upon her own young back. But one higher step is perhaps reserved for her. With each grandson laid in her arms she is again exalted. The family line is secure. Her husband's soul is protected. Proud is she among women. Blessed be the gods! ~ Katherine Mayo

Once a person has been poisoned by self-deception, he can't make decisions about himself as neatly as all that," Himiko said, elaborating her friend's terrific prophecy; " You won't get a divorce Bird. You'll justify yourself like crazy, and try to salvage your married life by confusing the real issues. A decision like divorce is beyond you now, Bird, the poison has gone to work. And you know how the story ends ? Not even your own wife will trust you absolutely, and one day you'll discover for yourself that your entire private life is in the shadow of deception and in the end you'll destroy yourself. Bird, the first signs of self-destruction have appeared already!"
" But that's a blind alley! Leave it to you to paint the most hopeless future you can think of. " Bird lunged at jocularity ... ~ Kenzaburo Oe

Such disappointments, betrayals and reconciliations were the stuff of married life, but she and Jack had gone through them before the wedding. Now, at least, she felt confident that she knew him. Nothing was likely to surprise her. It was a funny way to do things, but it might be better than making your vows first and getting to know your spouse afterward. ~ Ken Follett

To this husband of hers she made the last concession of married life, which is more complete, more irrevocable, than the first - she listened to him. She told herself that the years had brought her tolerance - actually they had slain what measure she had ever possessed of moral courage. She ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Why my wife owned a shotgun, I had no idea. Or ski masks. Neither of us had ever skied. But she didn't explain and I didn't ask. Married life is weird, I felt. ~ Haruki Murakami

The baggage in your individual life will weigh down your married life. Do something about it. ~ Ted Lowe

Dare to love greatly. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I am not convinced that either the position, rewards or achievements have been worth the cost. My personal and married life and child raising have surely suffered from the professional attainments I have achieved. ~ Joanne Simpson

How many women are there ... who because of their husbands' harshness spend their weary lives in the bond of marriage in greater suffering than if they were slaves among the Saracens? ~ Christine De Pizan

Families share relationships based not only blood, but also the unique affiliation of a terribly long cord when measured in comparison with any other undertaking in a person's life, from cradle to the grave if you will. These intimate associations create a bond of love, affection, goodwill, and joy that we seek to duplicate when we marry and begin creating our extended families. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

You need to be my wife to win with me. ~ Pawan Mishra

Because marriage is meant to reflect the great sacrificial and sanctifying love Christ has for his church, it makes sense to connect your married life to a local Christian congregation. ~ Matt Chandler

The elderly man, flushed with pleasure, was recounting in voluble fashion his experiences and impressions. His wife joined in periodically, with meticulous corrections involving completely unimportant points; these being given and taken in the best of humor. ~ Isaac Asimov

Jail is a good experience but it has its drawbacks ... all the disadvantages of married life with none of its compensations ... ~ Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Those kisses ... repaired and soothed and knit together the weave of married life. ~ Eloisa James

married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. ~ Oscar Wilde

For me, it took five years to understand what professionalism meant. But I'm more settled now. I'm married, life changes, and I've been lucky in managing my injuries. ~ Brian O'Driscoll

If marriage isn't a first priority in your life, you're not married. ~ Joseph Campbell

Some people say the reason I am not married is that I don't understand small business and the toughest small business in the world is a family. But when you are happy and feel every minute of your life, what is the reason to get married? ~ Mikhail Prokhorov

You know marriage is like hunger. You yearn for it till you don't get the food. Once the stomach is full, you don't want more on your plate. But then hunger can subside only temporarily. It keeps coming back and that's how exactly a happy married life keeps going on, with all ups and downs. ~ Shikha Kaul

Married life teaches one invaluable lesson: to think of things far enough ahead not to say them. ~ Jefferson Machamer

My own sex life is very monogamous and happy ... just a happy married sex life! ~ Tom Ford

I lost my parents very early in my life. My mom died three weeks after I graduated from high school, and my dad died two years after I got married. ~ Mary Badham

Marlboro Man and I settled in together, soaking up the first days of married life on the ranch that was my new home. He spent his days working cattle; his evenings figuring out the business ramifications of the imploding financial situation in which he and Tim now found themselves. I, on the other hand, spent my days getting organized and washing his muddy clothes, failing miserably in my attempts to remove the greenish brown manure stains and making plans instead to order a hundred pairs of the jeans he wore so I could replace them every day. I saw no other alternative. ~ Ree Drummond

I knew that my husband was a song that I had forgotten the words to and I was a fuzzy photograph of someone he used to love. ~ Catherine Lacey

Married life is a simpler life. Who I spend my time with is established in advance. ~ Bill Gates

In married life three is company and two none. ~ Oscar Wilde

Elizabeth smiled warmly. "For you I will allow it, Mr. Trask. How is your wife, sir? Still putting up with you, or has she finally come to her senses and run away?"
Trask laughed, slapping his knee. "I see married life has not tamed that wit of yours, Miss Elizabeth! Well done! Your poor hus- band, to be saddled with such a wench!"
Lizzy assumed a mournful face. "Yes, it is a tragic affair. It is merely a matter of time ere a cell at Bedlam will be his home. ~ Sharon Lathan

You aren't intending to spend your married life quarreling, I hope?" Claude said, frowning as his brother passed a hand nervously through his hair and turned to the door. "I intend to be happy," Lord Francis said. "I shall see to it that I quarrel with Soph every day of our lives, Claude. ~ Mary Balogh

<spoiler>
Afterward, he would leave her, and he would go to sleep in his own home. "It's hard to understand," he would tell Lila whenever she would press his gently on the subject, "but with us Arabs, a man can come and go, and his wife will not say a word. She'll notice the length of his absences, but she won't press him or ask for explanations. For his part, so long as he acts modestly and doesn't show off his lover in plain view, then he will not bring shame on his family. /<spoiler></spoiler></spoiler> ~ Anat Talshir

What do you mean, 'Angle of Repose?' she asked me when I dreamed we were talking about Grandmother's life, and I said it was the angle at which a man or woman finally lies down. I suppose it is; and yet ... I thought when I began, and still think, that there was another angle in all those years when she was growing old and older and very old, and Grandfather was matching her year for year, a separate line that did not intersect with hers. They were vertical people, they lived by pride, and it is only by the ocular illusion of perspective that they can be said to have met. But he had not been dead two months when she lay down and died too, and that may indicate that at that absolute vanishing point they did intersect. They had intersected for years, for more than he especially would ever admit. ~ Wallace Stegner

Married life is an existence with bars around it. ~ Al Goldstein

...half the pleasures of life [are] derived from the little struggles and small privations that one had to endure at the beginning of one's married life. Such struggles [are] generally occasioned by want of means, and often helped to make loving couples stand together all the firmer. ~ George Grossmith

Single or married, you are responsible for your own personal happiness. ~ Kathy McClary

Married life is absolutely brilliant. ~ Ronnie Wood

If they are unsuccessful in married life, who suffers more the bitter consequences of poverty than the wife? But if successful, she has not a dollar to call her own. ~ Ernestine Rose

It's weird, marriage. It's like this license that gives a person the legal right to control their spouse / their 'other half. ~ Jess C. Scott

It is, after all, envy rather than jealousy that causes most of the trouble in married life. ~ Anthony Powell

Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. From snails to hardware stores to married life. Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek. ~ Haruki Murakami

He caressed the side of her jaw with his fingertips, sending a light shiver down her spine. "I should warn you that if we lose the paper, we'll have to sell the house."
"That's fine."
"And the furniture."
"I don't care."
"And - "
"We can pawn, sell, and trade off everything we own ... but if you dare say one thing about my diamond, you'll regret it for the rest of your married life. This ring is mine, and it's not leaving my finger."
He grinned at her vehemence. "I wasn't going to say anything about your ring, honey." Bending down to kiss her, he left wet handprints on the waist and bodice of her gown, but Lucy was too enthralled by his hearty kiss to protest.
"You taste like coffee," she whispered when his lips left hers.
"I could do with more."
"Coffee or kisses?"
"Always more kisses ... ~ Lisa Kleypas

Of course married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. But then one regrets the loss even of one's worse habits. ~ Oscar Wilde

Is this better or worse than being married and living in the suburbs? Better or worse? Who can tell? ~ Candace Bushnell

Love fuels the existence of a divine being ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The re-dipping of the dishes was a small matter, but the emotional texture of married life is made up of small matters. This one had become invested with a fatal quality. ~ Elizabeth Jenkins

Nevertheless, he had offered her a home under his own roof, which Lavinia accepted with the alacrity of a woman who had spent the ten years of her married life in the town of Poughkeepsie. ~ Henry James

Bluestocking, Nancy. Married life has quite changed something ~ Kate Atkinson

In Breaking Clean, Judy Blunt looks back on her childhood and early married life in the 1950s and '60s on cattle ranches in northeastern Montana, and explores what it meant to be female in that place and time. ~ Nancy Pearl

Marriage can bore you but there is a fortitude that comes from it, too. When you need to lean on it, you are so thankful that you can. ~ Ellen Tien

She was heading for the piano, and something told me that it was her intention to sing old folk songs, a pastime to which, as I have indicated, she devoted not a little of her leisure. She was particularly given to indulgence in this nuisance when her soul had been undergoing an upheaval and required soothing, as of course it probably did at this juncture.
My fears were realized. She sang two in rapid succession, and the thought that this sort of thing would be a permanent feature of our married life chilled me to the core. ~ P.G. Wodehouse