An American Marriage Quotes & Sayings

Modern American marriage is like a wire fence. The woman's the wire -the posts are the husband's. — Langdon Elwyn Mitchell

I'm an American for marriage equality. I believe that love comes in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. So whether you're LGBT or straight, your love is valid, beautiful, and an incredible gift. — Demi Lovato

They could play married, both happy and unhappy, like no other acting couple have ever played married. They're the Lunts of the American marriage movie. — Jeanine Basinger

I'm trap in marriage with gangsta rhyme and my street life. — Kjiva

I have an American son and an American partner, so marriage might logistically make sense at one point. My partner is a stay-at-home father, so if he wants to be on my health plan, or tax wise, or maybe on paper we want to have our I's dotted and our T's crossed, but emotionally, neither of us really feels the need for it. — Evangeline Lilly

The death of anti-gay hate speech is no doubt being hastened by the head-spinning speed with which gays as a group - to say nothing of gay marriage - are becoming an unremarkable and even quite traditional parts of American life. — Jeffrey Kluger

The goals of American Christianity are often a nice marriage, children who don't swear, and good church attendance. Taking the words of Christ literally and seriously is rarely considered. — Francis Chan

Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. ... We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it's no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits. — Bryan Fischer

On the whole, the great success of marriage in the States is due partly to the fact that no American man is ever idle, and partly to the fact that no American wife is considered responsible for the quality of her husband's dinners. — Oscar Wilde

It doesn't matter who you marry, as long as he thinks like you and is a gentleman and a Southerner and prideful. For a woman, love comes after marriage."
"Oh, Pa, that's such an Old Country notion!"
"And a good notion it is! All this American business of running around marrying for love, like servants, like Yankees! The best marriages are when the parents choose for the girl. For how can a silly piece like yourself tell a good man from a scoundrel? — Margaret Mitchell

I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me. — Abraham Lincoln

You want to be French, Mary Frances, that's your problem, but instead you're just another American."
I went to the window for that one an saw a marriage disintegrate before my eyes. Poor Mary Frances in her beige beret ...
"Americans," he repeated. "We don't live in in France, we live in Virginia. Vienna, Virginia. Got it?"
I looked at this guy and knew for certain that if we'd met at a party he'd claim to live in Washington, D.C. Ask for a street address, and he'd look away, mumbling, "Well, just outside D.C. — David Sedaris

It is not wrong or bigoted to believe American society is stronger and that the family unit is better served when marriage is between a man and a woman. It is also not wrong for homosexual Americans to want to get as much parity as they can. — Bill O'Reilly

It is each American's constitutional right to marry the person they love, no matter what state they inhabit. No state should decide who can marry and who cannot. Thanks to the tireless work of so many, someday soon this discrimination will end and every American will be able to enjoy their equal right to marriage. — Brad Pitt

Asian face and local language skills to handle the cash. I had just returned to the States from Vietnam, having left the military under a cloud, the origins of which I was able to understand only years later. My mother, the American half of the marriage, had just died; I had no brothers or sisters; — Barry Eisler

That had been the trouble with him and Betsy: what with his brooding about the past and worrying about the future, there had never been any present at all. — Sloan Wilson

Never Let anyone tell you that you can't; show them that you can. — Gloria Mallette

Mainstream American society finds it easiest to be tolerant when the outsider chooses to minimize the differences that separate him from the majority. The country club opens its doors to Jews. The university welcomes African-Americans. Heterosexuals extend the privilege of marriage to the gay community. — Malcolm Gladwell

I want a little girl with your smile and your smarts. I want Christmases and birthdays and a chocolate Lab who wears an American flag bandana that you name after a political philosopher or something. We can even include him in the family campaign photos. — Chanel Cleeton

Relationships between men and women are only about sex. The rest of the sh*t is incidental. — Chad Kultgen

The principal objective of American government at every level should be to
see that children are born into intact families and that they remain so. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Politicians against gay marriage now, are the future villains of our American History books. — Natalie Maines

Sometimes a rut can be a comfortable place to be, but ours was full of too many differences and resentments to be wholly comfortable. I had always had my own way in the marriage - about what we'd do, where we'd do it, when, how. Katharine had always argued, and always given in. In the process she'd become more resentful, I guess, except that I was too busy with my own work to notice. But in turn she was less and less appealing to me. She's a couple of years older than me, I guess you know that, but that wasn't all. Those stolid American middle-class values, her sensible clothes, her sense of responsibility, her moderation in all things - frankly, they bored me. We made love less and less, and she didn't even seem to miss it. I did. — Shashi Tharoor

Sylvia Plath"
A miniature mad talent? Sylvia Plath,
who'll wipe off the spit of your integrity,
rising in the saddle to slash at Auschwitz,
life tearing this or that, I am a woman?
Who'll lay the graduate girl in marriage,
queen bee, naked, unqueenly, shaming her shame?
Each English major saying, "I am Sylvia,
I hate marriage, I must hate babies."
Even men have a horror of giving birth,
mother-sized babies splitting us in half,
sixty thousand American infants a year,
U.I.D., Unexplained Infant Deaths,
born physically whole and hearty, refuse to live,
Sylvia ... the expanding torrent of your attack. — Robert Lowell

I would prefer every [American] state keep the definition of marriage that's prevailed in Western civilization for a couple thousand years. — Gary Bauer

None of this can actually be happening. If it makes you more comfortable, you could simply think of it as metaphor. Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves you - even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure your football team, army, business, or marriage thrives, prospers, and triumphs over all opposition.
Religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world. — Neil Gaiman

Jazz music is as American as it gets, and so is the U.S. Postal Service. A Miles Davis stamp is a perfect marriage of two great American institutions. — Henry Rollins

Easy, Sage, you have no idea. I just agreed to betray my marriage vows, my husband, and my beating heart. — N.D. Jones

Throughout our history each and every generation has expanded upon the freedoms won by their parents and grandparents. Each and every generation has removed some of the barriers to full participation in the American dream. And the next great barrier standing before our generation is the prohibition on marriage for same-sex couples — Michael Bloomberg

Marriage felt like a fading American institution, as relevant to me as the Elks Club. Plus, I considered myself punk rock, and punk rockers don't believe in boring societal conventions like marriage. We prefer boring societal conventions like punk rock. — Michael Ian Black

The American and Russian capabilities in space science and technology mesh; they interdigitate. Each is strong where the other is weak. This is a marriage made in heaven - but one that has been surprisingly difficult to consummate. — Carl Sagan

I am a fierce supporter of domestic-partnership and civil-union laws. I am not a supporter of gay marriage as it has been thrown about, primarily just as a strategic issue. I think that marriage, in the minds of a lot of voters, has a religious connotation. I know that's true in the African-American community, for example. And if you asked people, 'should gay and lesbian people have the same rights to transfer property, and visit hospitals, and et cetera,' they would say, 'absolutely.' And then if you talk about, 'should they get married?', then suddenly ... — Barack Obama

But I'll tell you the same thing I tell my students when they complain about the depressing nature of American literature: life is not a PG feel-good movie. Real life often ends badly, like our marriage did, Pat. And literature tries to document this reality, while showing us it is still possible for people to endure nobly. — Matthew Quick

I was never used to being happy, so that wasn't something I ever took for granted. I did sort of think, you know, marriage did that. You see, I was brought up differently from the average American child because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy - that's it, successful, happy, and on time. — Marilyn

Contrary to what we hear, the great American divide is not a clash between conservatives who advocate liberty versus progressives who oppose liberty. Rather, the two sides each affirm a certain type of liberty. One side, for example, cherishes economic liberty while the other champions liberty in the sexual and social domain. Nor is it a clash between patriots and anti-patriots. Both sides love America, but they love a different type of America. One side loves the America of Columbus and the Fourth of July, of innovation and work and the "animal spirit" of capitalism, of the Boy Scouts and parochial schools, of traditional families and flag-saluting veterans. The other side loves the America of tolerance and social entitlements, of income and wealth redistribution, of affirmative action and abortion, of feminism and gay marriage. — Dinesh D'Souza

It got to be an American custom, like talk shows, Face the Nation, marriage counseling, marathon encounters, or zoning hearings. — Tom Wolfe

In 'Shadow Tag,' Erdrich creates scenes from a fictional marriage, that of two American Indians, Irene and her painter husband Gil, that suggest some of the worst psychological torments and stresses of real life. — Alan Cheuse

Protecting the institution of marriage safeguards, I believe, the American family. — John Boehner

The media's weird obsession with billing immigrant terrorists as apple-pie Americans leads to comical results, such as the panelists on MSNBC's The Cycle puzzling over how Aafia Siddiqui, a "U.S.-trained scientist" could have become radicalized.56 Here's a tip for MSNBC: When you can't pronounce the terrorist's name, the rest of America isn't sitting in slack-jawed amazement. Siddiqui wasn't an American by any definition. She wasn't even an anchor baby. Rather, Siddiqui was born and raised in Pakistan and came to the United States as an adult via our seditious universities. After an arranged marriage over the phone with another Pakistani, who - luckily for America! - joined her here, she divorced and married the nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Who could have seen Siddiqui's radicalism coming? — Ann Coulter

A middle ground might be to fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society's moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution. [Legalizing "same-sex marriage"] is also a chance to wholly transform the definition of family in American culture. — Michelangelo Signorile

How important are money management and finances in marriage and family affairs? Tremendously. The American Bar Association recently indicated that 89 percent of all divorces could be traced to quarrels and accusations over money. Another study estimated that 75 percent of all divorces result from clashes over finances. Some professional counselors indicated that four out of every five families wrestle with serious money problems ... — Jeffrey R. Holland

What makes you think I ever got married? Married women work themselves to death, all their money goes to husbands who gamble it away. Why would I ever do that to myself? — Kim Van Alkemade

If it's not some daring, dangerous affair, it's just not interesting, or so it seems. So, here you have two people - a famous American iconic couple - who actually like each other sexually, in marriage. Imagine. — Shelley Long

No significant American group hates like the left does. If you differ with them - from global warming, to race relations, to same-sex marriage, to the extent of rape on college campuses - they will humiliate, defame, libel and try to economically crush you. — Dennis Prager

My father, a refugee from Eastern Europe, was preparing a fraudulent marriage to an American citizen as a route to this country when he was sponsored, making fraud unnecessary. My wife's grandfather bought papers from another Chinese villager to be able to come to the United States. — Nicholas Kristof

American couples have gone to such lengths to avoid the interference of in-laws that they have to pay marriage counselors to interfere between them. — Florence King

And this, incidentally, is my thumbnail sketch of American marriage: A woman sees a man; she likes him. Now she jumps on this thing and rides it to some kind of standstill. Then she changes it and trains it, and to the exact degree that she's able to do this, she disrespects him. — Jack Nicholson

Several years after she obtained the patent for her game, and finding it difficult to support herself on the $10 a week she was earning as a stenographer, Magie staged an audacious stunt mocking marriage as the only option for women; it made national headlines. Purchasing an advertisement, she offered herself for sale as a "young woman American slave" to the highest bidder. Her ad said that she was "not beautiful, but very attractive," and that she had "features full of character and strength, yet truly feminine. — Anonymous

Studies have consistently shown that financial hardship is the biggest obstacle to heterosexual marriage, yet the Republican leadership has done precious little to help address the financial hardship faced by American families. — Kendrick Meek

Why did mainstream America come to accept marriage equality? Gay leaders had made a convincing case that gay families were like straight families and should have the same rights. The American spirit of fair play had been invoked. — Edmund White

The American woman's concept of marriage is a clearly etched picture of something uninflated on the floor. A sleeping-bag withoutair, a beanbag without beans, a padded bra without pads. To work on it, you start pumping
what the magazines call "breathing life into your marriage." Do enough of this and the marriage becomes a kind of Banquo's ghost, a quasi-living entity. — Florence King

The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics. — Barack Obama

We Americans often say that marriage is hard work. I'm not sure that the Hmong would understand this notion. Life is hard work, of course, and work is very hard work
I'm quite certain they would agree with those statements - but how does marriage become hard work? Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life's expectations for happiness into the hands of one mere person. Keeping that going is hard work. A recent survey of young American women found that what women are seeking these days in a husband - more than anything else - is a man who will "inspire" them, which is, by any measure, a tall order. As a point of comparison, young women of the same age, surveyed back in the 1920s, were more likely to choose a partner based on qualities such as "decency" or "honesty," or his ability to provide for a family. But that's not enough anymore. Now we want to be INSPIRED by our spouses! Daily! Step to it, honey! — Elizabeth Gilbert

We would be more American on the day we permitted same-sex marriage than we were on the day before. — David Blankenhorn

American married life is the doormat to the whorehouse. — John Steinbeck

Humor is so culturally based that when I try to tell a joke as me being a white American, if I tell other white Americans, they'll laugh. If I tell an African American, they might not laugh. In fact, they either might not find it funny, or they might find it offensive, and I didn't mean it to be offensive. So these are the sort of little things that build up over time, just like in a marriage. You know, the little things can build up over time. — Michael Emerson

It's time for the Supreme Court to catch up to the American people and legalize gay marriage. — Bernie Sanders

Diana's great-grandmother Frances Work, or Fanny, as she was known to her family, was an American, and perhaps that is why the Princess always felt such a great affinity for the land across the Atlantic. Fanny's father began his career as a clerk in Ohio and ended up making millions as a financial whiz in Manhattan. A great patriot, he promised to disinherit any of his offspring who married Europeans. But Fanny, like Diana a strong-willed woman, crossed the Atlantic and married British aristocrat James Boothby Burke Roche, who became the third Baron Fermoy. When the marriage broke up, she returned to New York with twin sons and a daughter, and her indulgent father forgave her. — Jayne Fincher

Montanans believe in the right to make a good life for their families. How they define a family should be their business and their business alone. I'm proud to support marriage equality because no one should be able to tell a Montanan or any American who they can love and who they can marry. — Jon Tester

Everything about Jocelyn had been ordinary. A Norman Rockwell painting of mom, dad, one boy, one girl. Scott was her wild storm, her great American novel, her epic story. Every extraordinary moment she experienced was because of him. — Jessica Shook

I quickly found that the American church is a difficult place to fit in if you want to live out New Testament Christianity. The goals of American Christianity are often a nice marriage, children who don't swear, and good church attendance. Taking the words of Christ literally, and seriously, is rarely considered. That's for the 'radicals' who are 'unbalanced' and who go 'overboard.' Most of us want a balanced life we can control, that is safe, and that does not involve suffering. — Francis Chan

It is sad that the Republican leadership is not as interested as they say they are in protecting the institution of marriage as they are in waging a campaign to divide and distract the American people from the real issues that need to be addressed. — Kendrick Meek

If we can elect an African American as president, we can support gay marriage! Defeat prop 8! We will not give up! — Madonna Ciccone

In my life, I have been told that as a gay man I am a threat to the American family. I have been told that to accept me as an equal is an insult to God. I have been told that I am no better than a pedophile. I have been told that I cannot serve in the military because my presence will undermine unit cohesion. I have had bottles thrown at me when I gathered with others to protest for marriage equality. I have been told that I am sick, that I am damaged, and that I am damage and sickness incarnate.

Let the record show that what finally made me snap is the suggestion that I was supposed to have chemistry with Tori Spelling. — Dave Holmes

In an American context, let's say gay rights or marriage policy - that's a progressive thing. I understand that in an American context. — Trevor Noah

To deny an entire group of people the ability to be legal couples is anti-American and anti-freedom. As a devoted husband and father of two, I can't imagine the state of Minnesota not recognizing my love for my wife Isabelle. We would welcome and respect the equal rights for gays to experience the same joy and privileges of marriage that we do. — Chris Kluwe