The Whitsun Weddings Quotes

It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind. ~ Philip Larkin

Keatsian odes or reflective elegies which had formed the backbone of his early work ('At Grass', 'Church Going', 'An Arundel Tomb', 'The Whitsun Weddings', 'Here', 'Dockery and Son'). Now he resumed the sequence, and over the next six years would complete four more, all focused directly or indirectly on the theme of death: 'The Building', 'The Old Fools', 'Show Saturday' and finally 'Aubade'. ~ James Booth

If you're not entirely sure you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, it seems to me that the last thing you'd want to do is to set in motion a very lengthy, time-consuming, expensive, and highly public process designed to lead inexorably to just that. ~ Donna Andrews

She's talking about when Dimitri was very young, how he used to always beg her and her friends to let him play with them. He was about six and they were eight and didn't want him around." Viktoria paused again to take in the next part of the story. "Finally, Karolina told him he could if he agreed to be married off to their dolls. So Karolina and her friends dressed him and the dolls up over and over and kept having weddings. Dimitri was married at least ten times."
I couldn't help but laugh as I tried to picture tough, sexy Dimitri letting his big sister dress him up. He probably would have treated his wedding ceremony with a doll as seriously and stoically as he did his guardian duties. ~ Richelle Mead

When I sing along with Britney Spears I will sing in an American accent. But eventually I found my own voice. My songs are so brutally honest, it would be alien to sing in any accent other than my own. Don't get me wrong - I can imitate singers. I can do bar mitzvahs and weddings. ~ Ellie Goulding

I always thought there would be more interesting people at my wedding. ~ Sarah Ruhl

I feel like I was born to do this ... I started working professionally as soon as I could, doing weddings and things like that in high school, while everyone else was having keg parties. I just felt destined to do it and really committed and driven; it was something that just felt right all my life. ~ Idina Menzel

In Ethiopia, food is often looked at through a strong spiritual lens, stronger than anywhere else I know. It's the focal point of weddings, births and funerals and is a daily ceremony from the preparation of the meal and the washing of hands to the sharing of meals. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

I played in front of every conceivable audience you could face: an all-black audience, all-white, firemen's fairs, policemen's balls, in front of supermarkets, bar mitzvahs, weddings, drive-in theaters. I'd seen it all before I ever walked into a recording studio. ~ Bruce Springsteen

Some weddings take longer to plan than others. ~ Tina Brown

By the 1980s, practically no one under 60 in the real civilian world wore hats for anything except weddings, funerals or Ascot. Hats had been in competition with hair, and hair had won. Thirty years before that, Brits of all classes and ages wore hats all the time. ~ Peter York

Men have no cause to criticize women about the way they are about weddings. Because men are like that about sports, but it never ends. At least women, after the wedding, say it wasn't that big a deal and they're never going to look at the DVD again. Men never stop being crazy about sports. ~ Dave Barry

What do blokes do to prepare for weddings? I rack my brain, thinking about grooms in commercials. Tuxedos are out. I could get her a garter ...
Wait. Rings! Brilliant. And, where will we go afterward? We'll need a honeymoon suite somewhere. Look at me, already a pro at this husband business. ~ Wendy Higgins

It probably didn't help that we kept being taken on holiday to monasteries. Not many kids there, just monks. Although you do find the best reverb in monastic chapels. I have a theory that the religious experience is actually based on reverb - which is why outdoor weddings always seem weird. God isn't in the details, he's in the echo. ~ Tom McRae

Apparently, I'm a senstive guy. You didn't notice that about me right away?" He moved closer, carefully, slowly encroaching on her space. "I cry at chick flicks and weddings. ~ Stephanie Rowe

I think that weddings have probably been crashed since the beginning of time. Cavemen crashed them. You go to meet girls. It makes sense. ~ Christopher Walken

Most of all, I love graduations. They are individual and communal, an end and a beginning, more permanent than weddings, more inclusive than religions, and possibly the most moving ceremonies on earth. ~ Gloria Steinem

I've been to weddings and I've been to wakes in either setting Love takes no breaks. ~ Stanley Victor Paskavich

Salmon. Salmon, salmon, salmon, salmon. I eat so much salmon at these weddings, twice a year I get this urge to swim upstream. ~ David Nicholls

Wow. You really know how to make a woman happy..."
"I have a night-eight percent success rate with always knowing what will make a woman happy," he said.
Lindsey chuckled softly. "And how do you quantify that?"
"Would you like to know," he said.
Nat wanted to know. ~ Jamie Farrell

The only thing that makes me cry at weddings is the DJ's playlist. ~ Natasha Leggero

He did that slow perusal thing with his eyes that guys did when they wanted a girl to know they liked what they saw. A slow smile curved his lips. "Yep."

She recognized that look. She may have been out of the dating game for far too long, but she still understood the process. What she didn't know was how to respond. ~ Tami Lund

So, in the end, we were hypocrites for kindness. Both of us. Standing with my bouquet of orange blossoms, I thought: I'm happy but I'm in disguise. But probably many people feel that at their weddings. ~ Joan Silber

I don't do weddings, funerals or Tupperware parties. ~ Pamela Kay Walker

I have that old sinking feeling. I've been overly available, sickeningly sweet and forever enabling all in the name of being 'liked.' I've compromised myself. I've suffered fools, idiots and dullards. I've gone on far too many dates with men because I felt guilty that they liked me more than I liked them. I've fallen deeply and madly I'm love with men I've never met just because I thought they looked 'deep.' I've built whole futures with men I hardly knew; I've planned weddings and named invisible children based on a side glance. I've made chemistry where there was none. I've forced intimacy while building higher Walls. I've been alone in a two year relationship. I've faked more orgasms than I can count while being comfortable with no affection at all.
I realise I have to make a decision right here and now. Do I go back to the sliver of a person I was before or do I, despite whatever bullshit happened tonight, hold on to this... This authenticity? If I go back to the the way I was before tonight, I'll have to compromise myself, follow rules with men who have none, hold my tongue, be quiet and laugh at shitty jokes. I have to never be challenged, yet be called challenging when I have an opinion or, really, speak at all. I'll never be torched by someone and get goosebumps again. I'll never be outside of myself. I'll never let go. I'll never lose myself. I'll never know what real love is - both for someone else and for me. I'll look back on this life and wish I could do it ~ Liza Palmer

The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve.

On their blotter of fog the trees

Seem a botanical drawing.

Memories growing, ring on ring,

A series of weddings.



Knowing neither abortions nor bitchery,

Truer than women,

They seed so effortlessly!

Tasting the winds, that are footless,

Waist-deep in history.



Full of wings, otherworldliness.

In this, they are Ledas.

O mother of leaves and sweetness

Who are these pietas?

The shadows of ringdoves chanting, but chasing nothing. ~ Sylvia Plath

At that, Marty howled great big, messy sobs, and Elanor, the little lady in the yellow suit, who organized the weddings at the church, came running with a box of tissue.
Oz appeared in the vestibule, looking alarmed. "Is everything all right? I thought someone was strangling a duck."
"Do you mind?" Marty snapped. "Me and the bride, here, we're having a moment. ~ Jenn McKinlay

This is a great wedding. I like weddings." "It is a good one, isn't it?" she agreed. "But it was always going to be--Emma so efficient." "Isn't she," he said. "I like weddings." Lulu said nothing. "Weddings," he said after a moment. "Funny things, but I like them." Lulu stopped dancing and drew back to look up into his eyes. "If you say that one more time," she said levelly, "I won't take you to the Cheddar cheese shop." "Sorry," he said quickly "I like funerals, too, if that's any help? We do marvelous ones in Ireland, we're famous for them. ~ Gabrielle Donnelly

And so it was settled. Sam Gamgee married Rose Cotton in the spring of 1420 (which was also famous for its weddings), and they came and lived at Bag End. And if Sam thought himself lucky, Frodo knew that he was more lucky himself; for there was not a hobbit in the Shire that was looked after with such care. When the labours or repair had all been planned and set going he took to a quiet life, writing a good deal and going through all his notes. He resigned the office of Deputy Mayor at the Free Fair that Midsummer, and dear old Will Whitfoot had another seven years of presiding at Banquets. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Marriage is the perfection of what love aimed at, ignorant of what it sought. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

There was this to be said for weddings over battles, at least; it was less likely that someone would cut off your nose. ~ George R R Martin

The good thing about being gay, though, I always believed, is that you didn't make anyone go to a wedding. Nobody wants to go to a wedding. Nobody. It kind of bothers me now that you have to go to gay weddings, too. I don't care. It's still a wedding. And I would give anybody double gifts if they would elope. ~ David Sedaris

It was a matter of not seeing the woods for the trees. Glorious songs have been in Ireland forever, but a lot of these were so popular they were sung only by drunken men at weddings. They didn't have any regard for the song at all. So, I picked out 14 songs that I had grown up with, songs with great melodies. After 35 years as a songwriter, I appreciate the value of a good melody because I know how hard it is to write one. So I presented them in a new way, with piano, keyboards, strings, and a contemporary rhythm section. I just treated the melody with a bit of dignity and a bit of style. ~ Phil Coulter

Weddings matter. Not just because they mark a significant turning point in a couple's lives, which they do. Weddings also serve as rare reunions for extended families and long-lost friends. They are a continuation of sacred rights and centuries-old traditions. And, most important, they are opportunities for joy. We don't have enough of those in this harried, workaholic society-whole days set aside just to eat and drink and dance and be together. This is the real gift if the wedding, and it's given both to the couple and to everyone lucky enough to be present at their union. ~ Ellen McCarthy

The ceremonies that persist - birthdays, weddings, funerals - focus only on ourselves, marking rites of personal transition. […]
We know how to carry out this rite for each other and we do it well. But imagine standing by the river, flooded with those same feelings as the Salmon march into the auditorium of their estuary. Rise in their honor, thank them for all the ways they have enriched our lives, sing to honor their hard work and accomplishments against all odds, tell them they are our hope for the future, encourage them to go off into the world to grow, and pray that they will come home. Then the feasting begins. Can we extend our bonds of celebration and support from our own species to the others who need us?
Many indigenous traditions still recognize the place of ceremony and often focus their celebrations on other species and events in the cycle of the seasons. In a colonist society the ceremonies that endure are not about land; they're about family and culture, values that are transportable from the old country. Ceremonies for the land no doubt existed there, but it seems they did not survive emigration in any substantial way. I think there is wisdom in regenerating them here, as a means to form bonds with this land. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer