Partners Quotes

WOMEN lie about sex. It doesn't matter how many partners she says she's had before you. She's lying. ~ Richard Madeley

Churches are the primary partners that work with Habitat in an almost infinite variety of creative overlapping circles. We cherish these partnerships with churches ... I have always seen Habitat for Humanity as a servant of the church and as a vehicle through which the church and its people can express their love, faith, and servanthood to people in need in a very tangible and concrete (literally!) way. ~ Millard Fuller

There certainly are some women who treat their male partners badly, berating them, calling them names, attempting to control them. The negative impact on these men's lives can be considerable. But do we see men whose self-esteem is gradually destroyed through this process? Do we see men whose progress in school or in their careers grinds to a halt because of the constant criticism and undermining? Where are the men whose partners are forcing them to have unwanted sex? Where are the men who are fleeing to shelters in fear for their lives? How about the ones who try to get to a phone to call for help, but the women block their way or cut the line? The reason we don't generally see these men is simple: They're rare.
I don't question how embarrassing it would be for a man to come forward and admit that a woman is abusing him. But don't underestimate how humiliated a woman feels when she reveals abuse; women crave dignity just as much as men do. If shame stopped people from coming forward, no one would tell. ~ Lundy Bancroft

Of all the possible partners, I get a pit bull puppy. ~ Lauren Layne

I'm coming out with a wine ... I'm actually a restaurateur. I have Famous Famiglia Pizzeria that has opened up in the Sacramento airport. I'm also working with my business partner on opening up the Linnethia Lounge. ~ NeNe Leakes

In acting class, you talked always about keeping it real and don't act ... connect with the people and connect with the partner that you're acting with. The same is also true in politics. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

It is difficult for Iranian scholars and universities to retain their independence and to be seen as doing so, when cultural warfare is being carried out by some of their American partners. Indeed, such irresponsible behavior basically serves to intensify suspicion and in reality decreases the opportunity for real and meaningful dialogue. ~ Mohammad Marandi

A volunteer is a person who can see what others cannot see; who can feel what most do not feel. Often, such gifted persons do not think of themselves as volunteers, but as citizens - citizens in the fullest sense: partners in civilization. ~ George H. W. Bush

With the horses, you can't let them call the shot part of the time and then you call the shot part of the time. They're not really designed to be your leader, but they can be a great partner, but you need to lead, and they need to respect you and respond with respect. Don't think of respect as a dirty word. You need to respect them as well. ~ Buck Brannaman

Men are often miserable in relationships because they feel their partner takes them for granted, or shows him no appreciation for the things he gets right. ~ Matthew Hussey

My debut single "Pointless Relationship" is about a girl's view of where the relationship is going with her partner and it sounds like a negative term. But the song is more of an empowering song from a woman's perspective! It's the life of them together and it's just never going to go where it should go, and so she's saying to him this is a pointless relationship. ~ Tammin Sursok

It's more pressure on women to - if they marry or partner with someone, to partner with the right person. Because you cannot have a full career and a full life at home with your children if you are also doing all of the housework and child care. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

When you present people with things from the heart and from the soul, they make better choices: They make better choices about their bodies, they make better choices about their partners, they make better choices about the environment. ~ Billy Corgan

I definitely consider myself extremely blessed to have great partners in endorsing products. It's not about being on billboards. I endorse something because I believe in it. ~ Tim Tebow

He stayed nearly an hour. Clare would have kissed him again just for the fact he'd given her kids such a great time. He'd never seemed bored or annoyed with a conversation dominated by superheroes, their powers, their partners, their foes. ~ Nora Roberts

Dancing?", ventured Portia. "I do so prefer dancing to suffering, don't you, Nerissa?"
"You speak as if one must choose one over another. For every gentleman who has turned you around a ballroom can attest, dancing and suffering can be partners in step. ~ Christopher Moore

You've got to be good to each other ... it really comes back to respect. I was raised in a very Catholic, Italian family and it was all about respect. Don't talk badly about [your partner] the second they walk out the door; really preserve your relationship and be good to each other. Treat it like gold. ~ Giuliana Rancic

I want to be a man who is truthful and who won't let pride get in the way of my ripping myself open to my partner and saying, 'Here I am. This is me.' I feel there's something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable. ~ Dwayne Johnson

Agriculture brought to human beings more than a new way of procuring food. It introduced a new way of thinking about the relationship between humans an nature. Hunter-gatherers considered themselves to be part of the natural world; they lived with nature, not against it. They accepted nature`s twist and turns as inevitable and adapted to them as best they could. Agriculture, on the other hand, is a continuous exercise in controlling nature; it involves the taming and controlling of plants and animals, to make them servants to humans rather than equal partners in the natural world. With agriculture, I suggest, humans began to extend this idea of control over nature to other aspects of the natural world, including children. ~ Peter Gray

Look, Charlie," said Vince leaning back in his chair. "It's real simple. We will be four people
two men and two women
I figure it's better to have two women instead of three men and one woman so she'll have someone she can confide in and all. Women need that kind of thing. Anyway, we'll be four people
friends
housemates
equal partners. We'll be an alliance. We'll be just like family. And we'll help take care of one another. We'll have a nice home, each with our own private bedroom and bathroom, and a nice yard with flowers."
"And maybe a vegetable garden," added Charlie.
"That's it," grinned Vince. ~ Barbara Casey

Footballers wives are like leeches, feeding off their partners success. I don't want to be a footballer's wife. ~ Jamelia

Simon had never noticed before, but she wore a silver ring on her right hand, with a partner of flames around the band of it, and a carved L in the center. It reminded him of the ring Clary wore around her neck, with its design of stars.
"It's the Lightwood family ring," she said, noticing where his gaze was fixed. "Every family has an emblem. Ours is fire. ~ Cassandra Clare

So do you want to make culture? Find a community, a small group who can lovingly fuel your dreams and puncture your illusions. Find friends and form a family who are willing to see grace at work in one another's lives, who can discern together which gifts and which crosses each has been called to bear. Find people who have a holy respect for power and a holy willingness to spend their power alongside the powerless. Find some partners in the wild and wonderful world beyond church doors. And then, together, make something of the world. ~ Andy Crouch

In our works at Bethlehem and San Francisco, and all over the United States, I adopted this system: I pay the managers practically no salary. I make them partners in the business, only I don't let them share in the efforts of any other man. ~ Charles M. Schwab

Me and my partner, Conway Twitty, cleaned up at the 1972 Country Music Association Awards. ~ Loretta Lynn

It seems to me that a mutually beneficial relationship between a man and woman requires the man to be dominant. A sensible woman will allow the man to think he is the most important partner. ~ Beryl Bainbridge

Solitude can become your most meaningful companion and it can assist you in being a more giving person in your spiritual partnerships. Rather than regarding your partner's need for time alone as a threat, see it as a time of renewal that you celebrate. Make every effort to help each other have that space. Treat that space as sacred. ~ Wayne Dyer

A grifter's got an irresistible urge to be the guy who's wise. There's nothin' to whipping a fool. Hell, fools are made to be whipped. But to take another pro. Even your partner, who knows you and has his eye on you. That's a score! No matter what happens. ~ Donald E. Westlake

Yeah, she was grumpy and thought I was a bimbo. But you know what? I wish everyone was like her. No chitchat, no bullshit, no pretense of friendship. Just goods and services exchanged for money. The perfect business partner. ~ Andy Weir

An enormous round egg snatching and castrating the agile sperm;
monstorous and stuffed, the queen termite reigning over the servile
males; the praying mantis and the spider, gorged on love, crushing
their partners and gobbling them up; the dog in heat running through
back alleys, leaving perverse smells in her wake; the monkey showing
herself off brazenly, sneaking away with flirtatious hypocrisy. And
the most splendid wildcats, the tigress, lioness, and panther, lie
down slavishly under the male's imperial embrace, inert, impatient,
shrewd, stupid, insensitive, lewd, fierce, and humiliated ~ Simone De Beauvoir

With two women every week in England and Wales being killed by their partner or ex-partner, we need to act now to end domestic violence. I am only too pleased to add my name to the Real Man campaign for Women's Aid. ~ Tom Aikens

For sex to be wholly satisfying, we must have at least as much concern for a partner as for self - a requirement that doesn't live comfortably alongside the exhortation to 'do your own thing.' In the end, we are left with an extraordinarily heightened set of expectations about the possibilities in human relationships that lives side by side with disillusion that, for many, borders on despair. ~ Lillian B. Rubin

I'm proud to have opened [two] schools in Africa and one in Jamaica [through the Serena Williams Fund and its partners]. I was given a lot. I was given two parents. That's already starting above a lot of kids. And then I was given the opportunity to play tennis and parents who supported that. I feel I can give back. ~ Serena Williams

I've found the perfect partner. ~ Margot Fonteyn

The perfect man is the true partner. Not a bed partner nor a fun partner, but a man who will shoulder burdens equally with you and possess that quality of joy. ~ Erica Jong

The state of emotional intoxication allows one to grasp existence in one's self and in the other, as both subjectivity and passivity. The two partners merge in this ambiguous unity; each one is freed of his own presence and achieves immediate communication with the other. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

The whole point of marriage is to encourage your partner's development and have them encourage yours. ~ Carol S. Dweck

The terms `Husband' and `Wife' are inappropriate. They are only companions ad partners. One does not slave for other. They both have equal status. ~ Periyar E.V. Ramasamy

God has made us study partner. We need to talk about our project. ~ Isaac Marion

Recognizing that the world is governed by a minority, the sexually active, and that they hold sway of a huge majority of the nonsexual, those people too young or too old or too poor or too homely or sick or crazy or powerless to be able to afford sexual partners (or the luxury of systematic, sustained and shared introspection, so sexual in its own way). All advertisements and films and songs are addressed to sexuals, to their rash whims and finicky tastes. ~ Edmund White

True love is not a wish list but a "wish feeling." And the number one feeling - even before the feeling of love - is the feeling of safety. Without feeling safe, you will never feel true love. You must have trust in your partner's character and prioritize finding a partner who is honest, communicative, and empathic - someone who values growing - so you can feel safe to vulnerably be your truest core self with him - and then together the two of you can support one another to grow into your best possible selves. ~ Karen Salmansohn

The Rule of Agreement reminds you to "respect what your partner has created" and to at least start from an open-minded place. Start with a YES and see where that takes you. ~ Tina Fey

I've been active all my life. In 1990 I retired from my firm, I.M. Pei & Partners, and for two years I didn't do much. Then I started to get kind of antsy, so I decided, I'm going to do some more work. And I chose to do work outside the U.S. because I've spent 45 years here and I wanted to learn more about what's happening in the rest of the world. ~ I.M. Pei

The rains would end, and when they did, Ian and I would be together, partners in the truest sense. This was a promise and an obligation I had never had in all my lives. Thinking of it made me feel joyful and anxious and shy and desperately impatient all at the same time - made me feel human. ~ Stephenie Meyer

There are many people in the world who feel that if only they had a bigger car, a nicer house, better vacations, a more understanding boss, or a more interesting partner, then their life would work. We all go through that one. Slowly we wear out most of our 'if onlies.' ~ Joko Beck

Mr. Darcy is a construct designed to make woman feel bad about the partners that they're capable of attracting versus the fantasized image he presents. ~ Caitlin Kittredge

We are acknowledging the interconnectedness of our lives with other animals. Their well-being is not separate from ours. On the contrary, we share the same fate.
Moving forward, how we choose to be with animals will depend on how willing we are to be with them. Not as predator and prey, not as master and servant. But as kin, as partners, and as friends, strolling shoulder to shoulder along the dips and rises that stretch before us. We lose nothing when we do so. What we gain is our health, our happiness, our humanity. And friendships that are irreplaceable. ~ Aysha Akhtar

First, the moment INTPs stop sharing certain thoughts with their partners is the moment they begin to detach from and devalue them. At that moment, the INTP is no longer relating to his or her partner, but has chosen to become a free agent.

Second, when INTPs fail to share their thoughts, the relationship immediately becomes less interesting to them. Remember, the most honest and authentic reason for INTPs to be in a relationship is to learn and explore with their partner. So as soon as they turn down an independent path and start moving away from their partner, they have forsaken the primary purpose of the relationship. ~ A.J. Drenth

Keep your enemies at a distance, your partners close at hand. ~ Janet Morris

Devote yourself to your partner's sense of safety and security and not simply to your idea about what that should be. What may make you feel safe and secure may not be what your partner requires from you. Your job is to know what matters to your partner and how to make him or her feel safe and secure. ~ Stan Tatkin

Microsoft and Dell have been building, implementing and operating massive cloud operations for years. Now we are extending our longstanding partnership to help usher in the new era of cloud computing, by giving customers and partners the ability to deploy the Windows Azure platform in their own datacenters. ~ Bob Muglia

A major theme among the women I treat is their difficulty in asking men to do this or that, to touch them in a certain way. Women are very tender with the male ego. They're afraid of offending their partner's pride because men like to think they know how to perform. ~ Avodah K. Offit

We're together. You're mine. Which means, I give a shit. I'm always going to give a shit. We're going to fight, we're going to make mistakes, we're probably going to drive each other fucking crazy because, like I said earlier, you're a loon." I open my mouth to protest, but he keeps on talking. "Don't tell me I don't care about you, because it's bullshit. Don't tell me I'm not in this with you, because I am. I'm in it, sunshine. And I care - a hell of a lot more than I ever thought I would." He drops his forehead to rest against mine, and his voice loses a tiny bit of its edge. "This relationship - it's happening. You and me - we're partners. Equal partners, with equal feelings, and equal fucking chances of getting hurt. You got me? ~ Julie Johnson

A provisional government was appointed on April 1 (it consisted mainly of Talleyrand's whist partners), and the following day the Senate, on Talleyrand's urging, declared Napoleon deposed. ~ J. Christopher Herold

With the support of our vibrant web developer community and dedicated partners, our goal is to level the playing field and usher in an explosion of content and services that will meet the diverse needs of the next two billion people online. ~ Gary Kovacs

You never know beforehand what people are capable of, you have to wait, give it time, it's time that rules, time is our gambling partner on the other side of the table and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand, we have to guess the winning cards of life, our lives. ~ Jose Saramago

Security is something that serves Israeli interests and Palestinian interests. You have a common threat and you have a common enemy and it's important to deal with that as partners. ~ Dennis Ross

My partners are Gourov Dasgupta and Roshan Balu. Together, we're 'Superbia'. I've already signed some film and non-film assignments. ~ Shaan

I had the greatest sparring partners, I had the greatest sparring team. And these guys they wrapped me up a lot. I never got the chance to get off on them. ~ Michael Spinks

I couldn't handle more railing against Alexi. He'd been a wreck recently. Before I could stop myself I blurted out the rumor running through school: " Max is having sex with multiple partners!" Oh. Crap. ~ Jess ~ Shannon Delany

You know how people are always saying your parents are always right? "Follow your parents' advice; they know what's good for you." And you know how no one ever listens to this advice, because even if it's true it's so annoying and condescending that it just make you want to go, like, develop a meth addiction and have unprotected sex with eighty seven thousand anonymous partners? ~ John Green

She and Jon had been startled and a little frighented by his misery. What happened when you were married, she realized, was that, although you began as two independent people, you eventually grew in certain ways to accommodate your partner's weaknesses and let other parts of you atrophy in deference to his strengths. It was a fine system as long as it endured, but if you extricated yourself from it you couldn't help but be, a least for a time, deformed. ~ Christina Schwarz

I think the value of a relationship is not how long it is but how much it helps you to grow as a human being ... how much it affected your life and how much it affected your partner's. ~ Fritz Diantan

What would you have me do?
Seek for the patronage of some great man,
And like a creeping vine on a tall tree
Crawl upward, where I cannot stand alone?
No thank you! Dedicate, as others do,
Poems to pawnbrokers? Be a buffoon
In the vile hope of teasing out a smile
On some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad
For breakfast every morning? Make my knees
Callous, and cultivate a supple spine,-
Wear out my belly grovelling in the dust?
No thank you! Scratch the back of any swine
That roots up gold for me? Tickle the horns
Of Mammon with my left hand, while my right
Too proud to know his partner's business,
Takes in the fee? No thank you! Use the fire
God gave me to burn incense all day long
Under the nose of wood and stone? No thank you!
Shall I go leaping into ladies' laps
And licking fingers?-or-to change the form-
Navigating with madrigals for oars,
My sails full of the sighs of dowagers?
No thank you! Publish verses at my own
Expense? No thank you! Be the patron saint
Of a small group of literary souls
Who dine together every Tuesday? No
I thank you! Shall I labor night and day
To build a reputation on one song,
And never write another? Shall I find
True genius only among Geniuses,
Palpitate over little paragraphs,
And struggle to insinuate my name
In the columns of the Mercury?
No thank you! Calculate, scheme, be a ~ Edmond Rostand

his back to her. "Vic, how long's it been?" "How'd you end up down here, Sid?" I asked. "I thought you knew better than to put yourself in the crosshairs." "Nobody asks me to go out on the street anymore and I got me a weekend place down near Schererville." He winked, meaning, I suppose, that he was actually living down in Indiana - a no-no for someone on Chicago's payroll. Sid had been one of my dad's last partners, after Tony had been redeemed from cop hell: my dad had been sent to West Englewood ~ Sara Paretsky

Mek sat in the cab, doing some self-maintenance work. Instead of a verbal reply, I got a text message: SYLVATRONICS INDUSTRIAL UNIT A023 PROCESSING AN REINTEGRATION WILL BE COMPLETE IN 57 SECONDS. VERBAL COMMUNICATIONS WILL BE POSSIBLE IN ABOUT 65 SECONDS.

Oh well, I've caught rookie driving partners in the middle of all sorts of things. At least with robots you don't have to guess. ~ Paul Carlson

Many people wake up in middle age with the realization that in their youthful romances and early marriages, they were drawn to precisely the kinds of partners they were trying to avoid. All too often we marry stand-ins for our alchoholic fathers, shadowy replacements for our angry mothers, surrogates with whom we try to work out our unfinished childhood dramas. Or we fall in love with someone who incarnates the virtues or vices opposite our own. An orderly man who plans his days marries a spontaneous woman who lets things lie where they fall, lives in the moment, and is perpetually late for appointments. ~ Sam Keen

It is hard to predict what I want in a partner. It's more about what the universe brings to me, and what I feel is right. ~ Tobey Maguire

Since love and hate can be fierce partners in crime, it is highly recommended to trace any early indicia of the fault lines in a shaky relationship in order to avert irreparable damage. ("Mes cliques et mes claques" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

Thou shalt not turn away from him that is in need, but shalt share with thy brother in all things, and shalt not say that things are thine own; for if ye are partners in what is immortal, how much more in what is mortal? ~ Anonymous

Correct Overestimated Feedback Fears

One of the reasons anxious people fear feedback is that they tend to judge their performance more harshly than others judge them. If you're feeling anxious, you'll probably overestimate the likelihood that any feedback you'll get will be negative - the negative predictions thinking error.
Let's say you need to get feedback on your delivery of an upcoming presentation. You fear that you'll get crucified, that people will say your presentation style is horrible and won't say anything nice. How likely does this feared outcome feel? You might say, "It feels 99% likely." How likely is it in reality? You think, "Objectively, maybe 50%?" Your answer of 50% may still be an overestimate, but at least it jump-starts the shift in your thinking. It alters you that your anxious feelings are, to some extent, clouding your perceptions.
Although it seems strange that people can shift their thinking just based on whether they are asked to think with their anxious mind or their objective mind, this isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. There's lots of research evidence that people's thinking changes based on how they're asked to think about something. For example, my own doctoral research asked people in relationships how their judgments of their romantic partner compared to reality. People recognized that they tended to view their partners more positively than warranted by reality.
Experiment: Think of a current area in your life wh ~ Alice Boyes

You're better off owning 30 percent and having two amazing partners who compliment you and are equally as driven as you are than having 100 percent and only having one aspect of it, unless you're a super genius who is creative and business-minded at the same time. ~ Rob Dyrdek

Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over, they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever. ~ Richard Dawkins

Sometimes we may find that our partner continues to seek satisfaction in ways that we cannot live with. Nevertheless, when we decide to go our own way, we still have a choice as to how we separate. We can separate with bad feelings, blaming the other's faults and unacceptable behaviour, or we can separate with forgiveness, love and understanding. ~ Peter Russell

Our fathers were actually business partners in the same real-estate firm, and we got together and thought, How can we get a movie together and get distribution and create a new movie genre? We started by making satires of commercials. ~ David Zucker

What does open us is sharing our vulnerabilities. Sometimes we see a couple who has done this difficult work over a lifetime. In the process, they have grown old together. We can sense the enormous comfort, the shared quality of ease between these people. It is beautiful, and very rare. Without this quality of openness and vulnerability, partners don't really know each other; they are one image living with another image ... ~ Joko Beck

Society has seldom considered the vicarious effects of domestic violence between partners on the lives of children. ~ Asa Don Brown

You'll need courage because polyamorous relationships can be scary. Loving other people without a script is scary. Allowing the people you love to make their own choices without controlling them is scary. The kind of courage we're talking about involves being willing to let go of guarantees - and love and trust your partners anyway. ~ Franklin Veaux

One night, encouraged by the male partners, I puffed away on a cigar - just one of the guys. Except that the smoking nauseated me and I reeked of cigar smoke for days. If that was fitting in, I stuck out. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

His own children were not members of the Clemson incoming freshman class, but two of his nieces and a nephew were. On the news, he outlined his problems with the summer-reading committee's selection. The book talks in graphic terms about pornography, about fetish, about masturbation, about multiple sex partners . . . The book contains a very extensive list of over-the-top sexual and antireligious references. The explicit message that this sends to students is that they are encouraged to find themselves sexually. ~ Ann Patchett

Karch inspired his partners, his opponents and the world of volleyball players to be better than they were, to be great ... In the end, who could do more for a sport than that? ~ Mike Dodd

A woman may believe that because she is suffering she has the right to be taken care of and to be pitied; most important, she may view it as justification for not taking any action to make her life better. However, suffering doesn't change anything. Backdoor, indirect attempts to communicate are never effective because they don't confront the issues. Also, the misogynist is rarely sensitive to his partner's feelings. If he does recognize that his partner is suffering, his attitude is liable to be that it has nothing to do with him. The woman's suffering is considered further evidence of her deficiencies. If she breaks down physically or emotionally, it may only add to his contempt for her weakness. In his eyes, she becomes pathetic as well as deficient. ~ Susan Forward

There's a loser in every relationship. We may not like to admit it, but one of us always gets a little more and one of us always gives up a little more readily. ~ Fredrik Backman

Consciously or not, greed and power are deadly partners. ~ Lisa Renee Jones

Feast your eyes on the severe massivity of our tag partner. ~ Edge

You think you know horror, Irnakk? Horror is looking into the eyes of the Shadowed One, knowing you are about to die ... and then being forced to live. Horror is waking each day to see every part of your body moving on its own - a shifting mass of Protodites where once was solid metal and living tissue. Horror is what is in the eyes of your partners when they look at you ... and in the cries of your enemies when your swarm engulfs them. Don't talk to me about fear, creature - I am fear!
-Zaktan ~ Greg Farshtey

Uncoupling is primarily a tale of two transitions: one that begins before the other. Most often, one person wants out while the other person wants the relationship to continue. Although both partners must go through all the same stages of the transition in order to uncouple, the transition begins and ends at different times for each. By the time the still-loving partner realizes the relationship is in serious trouble, the other person is already gone in a number of ways. The rejected partner then embarks on a transition that the other person began long before. ~ Diane Vaughan

And this is the potency a first kiss should have: it should be earned. The moments leading up to it should be as tense as a crossbow drawn back. The reader should want it as badly as the hero and heroine, and feel as satisfied and transported and transformed as the hero and heroine in the wake of it. There are different ways to use kisses in a romance, but that first kiss is so meaningful, a pinnacle, and can be more intimate than sex. ~ Julie Anne Long

If you're going climbing with young people, you get very, very used to seeing your climbing partner as a tiny little dot. ~ Chris Bonington

The frequency of divorce is extremely high after airplane hijackings. They're like crisis situations where suddenly you see a side of your partner that makes you think, "I don't want to continue living with this person anymore." ~ Ruben Ostlund

Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. ~ Antonin Scalia

I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity and complaisance are the principal duties of both; and those men who do not choose to dance or marry themselves, have no business with the partners or wives of their neighbours. ~ Jane Austen

The key to a successful dance is to make it seem like you can't help yourself. You look into your partner's eyes, as if that gaze binds you while your body moves to the music. ~ Cynthia Hand

Now that we all have partners, all husbands should come pick up their
projects."
Pick up our project? Shrugging, I stand up and stretch my arms. Henry also stands. "No way, dude," I say. "I'm the man in this relationship."
"Oh yeah, absolutely," he says, grinning. He sits back down as I walk to the closet to see this project, which turns out to be one of those fake
electronic babies. Oh good God. Ms. Bonner hands me a fake baby boy. The doll has these creepy glass eyes that look like they're staring straight
into my soul. I hold the doll out in front of me like it's a flaming bag of poo and carry it back to Henry.
"Congratulations, Mommy," I say, dropping the doll into his hands. You could've told me I knocked you up. ~ Miranda Kenneally

What was the secret of Grandpa's charm? I began to understand only years later. He possessed a quality that is hardly ever found among men, a marvelous quality that for many women is the sexiest in a man:

He listened.

He did not just politely pretend to listen, while impatiently waiting for her to finish what she was saying and shut up.

He did not break into his partner's sentence and finish it for her.

He did not cut in to sum up what she was saying so as to move on to another subject.

He did not let his interlocutress talk into thin air while he prepared in his head the reply he would make when she finally finished.

He did not pretend to be interested or entertained, he really was. Nu, what: he had an inexhaustible curiosity.

He was not impatient. He did not attempt to deflect the conversation from her petty concerns to his own important ones.

On the contrary: he loved her concerns. He always enjoyed waiting for her, and if she needed to take her time he took pleasure in all her contortions.

He was in no hurry, and he never rushed her. He would wait for her to finish, and even when she had finished, he did not pounce or grab but enjoyed waiting in case there was something more, in case she was carried along on another wave.

He loved to let her take him by the hand and lead him to her own places, at her own pace. He loved to be her accompanist.

He loved ge ~ Amos Oz

In the cause of self-advancement, we are urged to sacrifice our leisure, our pleasures and our time with partners and children, to climb over the bodies of our rivals and to set ourselves against the common interests of humankind. And then? We discover that we have achieved no greater satisfaction than that with which we began. In 1653, Izaak Walton described in the Compleat Angler the fate of "poor-rich men", who "spend all their time first in getting, and next in anxious care to keep it; men that are condemned to be rich, and then always busie or discontented". Today this fate is confused with salvation. ~ Anonymous

To speak of a communication failure implies a breakdown of some sort. Yet this does not accurately portray what occurs. In truth, communication difficulties arise not from breakdown but from the characteristics of the system itself. Despite promising beginnings in our intimate relationships, we tend over time to evolve a system of communication that suppresses rather than reveals information. Life is complicated, and confirming or disconfirming the well-being of a relationship takes effort. Once we are comfortably coupled, the intense, energy-consuming monitoring of courtship days is replaced by a simpler, more efficient method. Unable to witness our partners' every activity or verify every nuance of meaning, we evolve a communication system based on trust. We gradually cease our attentive probing, relying instead on familiar cues and signals to stand as testament to the strength of the bond: the words "I love you," holidays with the family, good sex, special times with shared friends, the routine exchange, "How was your day?" We take these signals as representative of the relationship and turn our monitoring energies elsewhere.
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Not only do the initiator's negative signals tend to become incorporated into the existing routine, but, paradoxically, the initiator actively contributes to the impression that life goes on as usual. Even as they express their unhappiness, initiators work at emphasizing and maintaining the routine aspects of life with the other person, ~ Diane Vaughan

Our comparative fidelity was fear of defeat at the hands of another partner. ~ Max Frisch

Capitalism has taught us that markets are always more efficient than hierarchical managerial coordination. But in a situation where those three conditions aren't met, I can't outsource or partner with you because markets don't function in the absence of sufficient information. ~ Clayton Christensen

The assumption lurking beneath a desire for hierarchy is that we can't really trust our partners to act well without a set of rules. That without a formal ranking to remind our partners that we come first, we will lose our status, lose the things we most value about our relationship, lose our sense of security, or even lose the relationship entirely. But as we've said before, if your partner can't be trusted to work with you on your needs when asked, she probably can't be trusted to follow rules. ~ Franklin Veaux