Quotes & Sayings About Marriage And Family Life

To live your best life now, you must start looking at life through eyes of faith, seeing yourself rising to new levels. See your business taking off. See your marriage restored. See your family prospering. See your dreams coming to pass. You must conceive it and believe it is possible if you ever hope to experience it. — Joel Osteen

In life loyalty is something that you earn and Doreen had more than earned my loyalty over the years. But marriage is a rogue state with its own rules, and one of them is pledging your loyalty to somebody before you can be fully sure that they deserve it, so you stand their ground. You mess with him? You mess with me. That's the new rule. A husband is instant family. He gets the loyalty of a blood tie without doing any of the work. — Kate Kerrigan

We welcome you to this moment in your lives and to the place you have come to in each other's hearts. We join with you on this day, as you commit before God and humanity that from this point forward you shall live as one. I remind all of our guests that you have been invited here for a holy purpose, not just to witness, but to participate fully with your thoughts and prayers, asking God to bless this couple and their married life. You are here because this couple feels close to you and asks that you join with them in this dedication of sacred purpose. You represent symbolically all the people in the world who will be touched in any way by the life of this couple. You represent their friends and family, now and forever. They have chosen this act of marriage and this public, holy ceremony in which to proclaim it. Together we all thank God who brought them together and ask Him always to guide their way. — Marianne Williamson

Fortunately, being mindful of family time - making a commitment to be there physically and mentally and enjoy life while doing so - makes memories possible. We control a lot less about our children's outcomes in life than we think. They are their own people. But one thing parents do shape is whether kids remember their childhoods as happy. Creating a happy home is a conscious choice, as is creating a happy marriage. — Laura Vanderkam

Marriage and family are certainly beautiful parts of life, but I believe those things can truly be appreciated only when we find, love, and respect ourselves first. — Holly Madison

You're married, and suddenly you have your own family. There's a nice comfort in that. That part of your life is certain ... You've got your home in that other person. — Scarlett Johansson

Then as now much time was spent arguing about the rights of women, husband-and-wife relationships and freedom and rights within marriage, but Natasha had no interest in any such questions.
Questions like these, then as now, existed exclusively for people who see marriage only in terms of satisfaction given and received by the married couple, though this is only one principle of married life rather than its overall meaning, which lies in the family. — Leo Tolstoy

Earlier, my priority was only work. I worked like a dog before I got married. After marriage, once you have a baby, time management is difficult. Your responsibilities change, your priorities change. And you have to concentrate on them if you have to work out your life. Your career is just a part of your life. For me, my family is my life. — Kajol

Central to knowing the Father is understanding the revealed pattern of family. The family is the most important unit in time and in eternity and is ordained of God. Living in loving family relationships not only brings us great happiness, but it also helps us learn correct principles and prepares us for eternal life. In addition, family relationships help us know, love, and understand the Father. This is one reason Latter-day Saints have always emphasized the importance of marriage and family both in the Church and in society. God's plan provides a way for family relationships to extend beyond the grave. We can return to the presence of God, eternally united with our families. — Quentin L. Cook

Well, that brings us to the point: There is only one way to protect ourselves from the deadly diseases that stalk the human family. It is abstinence before marriage, then marriage and mutual fidelity for life to an uninfected partner. — James C. Dobson

It was as if they'd discovered something that had once been there but had gotten hidden or misunderstood or forgotten over time, and they were charmed by it once more, and by one another. Which seems only right and expectable for married people. They caught a glimpse of the person they fell in love with, and who sustained life. For some, that vision must never dim - as is true of me. But it was odd that our parents should catch their glimpse, and have frustration, anxiety and worry pass away like clouds dispersing after a storm, refind their best selves, but for that glimpse to happen just before landing our family in ruin. — Richard Ford

Reality has a way of bursting the bubble of illusion, and an affair is one of the biggest illusions that anyone can experience in life. It's based almost entirely on emotions with almost no logic to support it.

That fact becomes clear when children, employers, clergy, family, and friends all hear about the affair. Because they are not in the fog, they see the affair for what it really is: the cruelest, most devastating, and selfish act anyone can ever inflict on a spouse. With so many people seeing the situation logically and not emotionally, the unfaithful spouse has an opportunity to be advised and influenced by these people. Furthermore, the betrayed spouse gains support when he or she needs it the most. — Willard F. Harley Jr.

Some day you will look back on these days as the happiest of your life. You will forget your financial struggles. You will forget the unfair division of duties. You will forget feeling trapped and smothered, imagining that you are in a loveless marriage. You will only remember the joy of a young family, working together making your way through an unfamiliar world. Appreciate what you have now.
pg vi — Michael Ben Zehabe

We are members of God's family. One faith, one hope and one baptism. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Life got in the way
two years in the army, work, marriage, family responsibilities, the need to earn more and more money, all the muck that bogs us down when we don't have the balls to stand up for ourselves
but I had never lost my interest in books. — Paul Auster

I oppose any attempt to grant homosexual unions the same legal privileges that civil government affords to traditional marriage and family life. — Todd Akin

Focus on your marriage. Because that's the nucleus of the home, whatever you do to restore its health and strength will naturally restore what's broken among the other relationships. If you have no children yet, this will make a comfortable nest for them to begin life well. If you have children, the changes you make in your marriage will affect the rest of the household more quickly and dramatically than you think. — Charles R. Swindoll

Libertarians see these changes as gains for freedom. No longer under the thumb of traditional marriage and religion, people can make up their own minds about how to live their personal lives, believing what they wish about religion and morality. Maybe so, but that's no basis for a free society. Codified rights offer limited protection. If the Supreme Court can find a right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution, then it can find anything, including dramatically different (and reduced) rights of speech, association, and religion. The most powerful limits to government power are found below and above political life: a strong culture of marriage and family, and robust, assertive religious institutions. A free society depends on strong family loyalties and faith's indomitable resolve. — R. R. Reno

To be clear, male leadership in marriage does not mean the husband does everything or even that he decides everything. Rather, it means he typically initiates and always leads those shared discussions with his wife by which the various aspects of marriage and family life are decided and planned. The wife's opinion is vitally important, and a godly couple should be a close-knit team. But there should be no area of family life in which the husband does not serve as leader, facilitator, and overseer. — Richard D. Phillips

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. — Josh Langley

Soul mates. They really call themselves that, which makes sense, because I guess they are ... They have no harsh edges with each other, no spiny conflicts, they ride though life like conjoined jellyfish - expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each other's spaces liquidly. Making it look easy. — Gillian Flynn

If you cannot work on the marriage or the women is a moron, staying married and cheating makes the most sense because divorce is disruptive to the family life and your bank account. — Al Goldstein

But playing your music as loud as you want and coming home drunk aren't real life. Real life, it turns out, is diapers and lawnmowers, decks that need painting, a wife that needs to be listened to, kids that need to be taught right from wrong, a checkbook, an oil change, a sunset behind a mountain, laughter at a kitchen table, too much wine, a chipped tooth, and a screaming child. — Donald Miller

I love Matthew Broderick. Call me crazy, but I love him. We can only be in the marriage we are. We're very devoted to our family and our lives. I love our life. I love that he's the father of my children, and it's because of him that there's this whole other world that I love. — Sarah Jessica Parker

On the one hand, the idea of marriage and the sort of traditional family life repulses me. But on the other hand, I long for it, you know what I mean? I'm constantly in conflict with things. And it is because of my past and my upbringing and the journey that I've been on. — Madonna Ciccone

That was why he could not stop coming to her. She was for him what his wife was not; a nymph who craved his sexuality and seduced him with words, dress and behavior. He wondered why good women would draw in a husband and then when they married them, they would stop all erotic endeavors. It was as if the very thing that drew the man was turned off as soon as they were trapped in the marriage. It seemed that family killed the sexual drive of women. They became mothers with an inability to any longer be lovers. Men were fish caught and thrown into the boat, gills desperately sucking for the life-giving source of their simple and primal need. That was why Abishai felt it was so easy for him to go astray, because his vice seemed more primal than his virtue. — Brian Godawa

Not necessary that every problem has a solution, you have to live with 'some' problems..rather than forcing a solution and doing a blunder, live with it.. People always have solutions for 'your' problems but none for their own.. — Honeya

Hope is putting Faith "on the line" and expecting results!
(from Mission Possible - Spiritual Covering) — Deborah L. McCarragher

In her daydreams, they aged miraculously, she still trim with a blond ponytail, standing next to her strong, tall husband with his thick, curly dark hair and straight white teeth. Money was never an issue. — Karen Jones Gowen

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

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

An excellent mother knows she has the beautiful life, and she is a big time programmer. — Jaachynma N.E. Agu

It's not a bad thing, if you're responsible about it. Just don't start having boyfriends. Wait until you've found your husband."
"And how am I supposed to find a husband if I can't have a boyfriend until then?" I asked ironically. — Zack Love

Even if you plan a marriage and a family, you are never quite prepared for the reality versus how you imagined it. In a lot of ways it's better, and in a lot of ways it's worse. That's life, right? — Katherine Heigl

Oh, she's my bodyguard. I mean, I'm a married man, and the last thing you need in that situation is to be considered a sexy individual. But I try to never let this whole McDreamy thing really influence us. I'm trying to just have a calm family life, to make my marriage work. It's not as if when my wife asks me to take out the trash, I say, 'Um, honey, don't you realize that I'm too sexy for that'? Well, actually, I do, but she gives me crap for it. — Patrick Dempsey

Heritage was everything: it was a golden skeleton key, gleaming with power, able to get the wielder through any number of locked doors; it was the christening of the marriage bed with virgin blood on snow-white sheets; it was the benediction of a pristine pedigree, refined through ages of selective breeding and the occasional mercy culling.
It was life, and death, and all that spanned between.
It was his birthright. — Nenia Campbell

After she married the Duke of York, she immediately transformed his life, bringing him love, understanding, sympathy and support for which he had always craved. She inspired him, she calmed him and she enabled him for the first time in his life to believe in himself. Her sense of humor awoke his own, her natural gaiety lightened him. Their marriage was a rare union in which each complemented and enhanced the other. — William Shawcross

There is no such thing as a "broken family." Family is family, and is not determined by marriage certificates, divorce papers, and adoption documents. Families are made in the heart. The only time family becomes null is when those ties in the heart are cut. If you cut those ties, those people are not your family. If you make those ties, those people are your family. And if you hate those ties, those people will still be your family because whatever you hate will always be with you. — C. JoyBell C.

How did so many women get to this unhappy place of not understanding how truly "simple" men are in their requirements and how much benevolent power their wives have over them? Why did notions like assuaging "male ego" and using "feminine wiles" rocket into disrepute? How is it that so many women are angry with men in general yet expect to have a happy life married to one of them?
There are a number of reasons for this, and I believe they all revolve around the assault upon, and virtual collapse of, the values of religious morality, modesty, fidelity, chastity, respect for life, and a commitment to family and child-rearing. — Laura C. Schlessinger

I had worn that gold ring for nearly thirty years; token of vows taken, forsaken, renewed, and at last absolved. A token of marriage, of family; of a large part of my life. And the last trace of Frank - whom, in spite of everything, I had loved. Jamie — Diana Gabaldon

People who simply live their life and care only about bearing children are under the influence of a misbelief that they are people — Sunday Adelaja

A conscience that is forbidden to operate in the choice of goals for economic activity is not conscience in the sense in which any moralist, pagan or Christian, has every understood the term. And the family (which [Michael] Novak regards as vital to the spirit of democratic capitalism) is precisely the place where the noncapitalist values have to be learned, where one is not free to choose his company and where one is not free to pursue self-interest to the limit. Because capitalism pursues the opposite goals - freedom of each individual to choose and pursue his own ends to the limit of his power - the disintegration of marriage and family life is one of the obvious characteristics of advanced capitalist societies. — Lesslie Newbigin

Marriage is sacred intimacy. The husband must love, feed and care for the family. The wife must love, respect and submit to the husband. — Lailah Gifty Akita

It is an oyster, with small shells clinging to its humped back. Sprawling and uneven, it has the irregularity of something growing. It looks rather like the house of a big family, pushing out one addition after another to hold its teeming life - here a sleeping porch for the children, and there a veranda for the play-pen; here a garage for the extra car and there a shed for the bicycles. It amuses me because it seems so much like my life at the moment, like most women's lives in the middle years of marriage. It is untidy, spread out in all directions, heavily encrusted with accumulations ... — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

A virtuous mother sows and sows seeds of greatness with great life in mind. — Jaachynma N.E. Agu

THE DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY RULES 1. Control or Chaos. One must be in control of all interactions, feelings and personal behavior at all times - control is the major defense strategy for shame. In the less-than-human shameless marriage, both parents may be cocaine addicts or addicted in other ways. They may be dishonest criminals. The children experience chaos, as well as secrecy rules that guard their family's behavior. 2. Perfectionism or Anomie. Always be right in everything you do. The perfectionist rule always involves an imposed measurement. The fear and avoidance of the negative is the organizing principle of life. The members live according to an externalized image. No one ever measures up. In the less-than-human family, there are no rules - the children have no structure to guide them. — John Bradshaw

Christmas is the marriage of chaos and design. The real sound of life, for once, can burst out because a formal place has been set for it. At the moment when things have gotten sufficiently loose, the secret selves that these familiar persons hold inside them shake the room ... An undercurrent of clowning and jostling is part of the process by which we succeed finally in making our necessary noise: despite the difficulty of getting the words right, of getting the singers on the same page, of keeping the ritual from falling apart into the anarchy of separate impulses. From such clatter
extended and punctuated by whatever instrument is handy, a triangle a tambourine, a Chinese gone
beauty is born. — Geoffrey O'Brien

Here's what I want you to ask yourself as you embark on your search for a vibrant sole mate: what will your ideal marriage look like? Will the two of you spend your lives "sucking the marrow out of life," or working hard to establish a business and/or ministry (and often spending evenings and weekends recovering)? Will you seek to build a child-centered family, focusing on the kids, or have you always thought you'd like to do a lot of foreign travel or maybe just adopt one or two children? Will you have separate hobbies, or would you prefer to do everything together? — Gary Thomas

Everything that occurs in the temple is uplifting and ennobling. It speaks of life here and life beyond the grave. It speaks of the importance of the individual as a child of God. It speaks of the importance of the family and the eternity of the marriage relationship. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Every friend, every neighbor, and every family member wishes that you retain your golden heart. No one wants to see your love sullied. Yet, they all know a dark circumstance will find you eventually. Know this: You are being hunted
like game. Life will knock you down with some unexpected misfortune. Resolve now, to help your partner get back up. Only a determined family kills its wounded. When everyone else abandons him, come back for your husband.
pg 55 — Michael Ben Zehabe

Only the exclusive and indissoluble union between a man and a woman has a plenary role to play in society as a stable commitment that bears fruit in new life. — Pope Francis

The liberal party said that marriage is an institution quite out of date, and that it needs reconstruction; and family life certainly afforded Stepan Arkadyevitch little gratification, and forced him into lying and hypocrisy, which was so repulsive to his nature. — Leo Tolstoy

Love is the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet it is not found only at the end of the rainbow. Love is at the beginning also, and from it springs the beauty that arched across the sky on a stormy day. Love is the security for which children weep, the yearning of youth, the adhesive that binds marriage, and the lubricant that prevents devastating friction in the home; it is the peace of old age, the sunlight of hope shining through death. How rich are those who enjoy it in their associations with family, friends, and neighbors! Love, like faith, is a gift of God. It is also the most enduring and most powerful virtue. — Gordon B. Hinckley

A great purposelessness has descended upon modern civilizations. People at large have lost any sense of the meaning and purpose of life; and without an understanding of our own purpose, there can be no true commitment. Whether that commitment is to marriage, family, study, work, God, relationships, or the simple resolutions of our lives, it will be almost impossible to fulfill without a clear and practical understanding of our purpose. Commitment and purpose go hand in hand. — Matthew Kelly

Two of the vital pillars that sustain Father in Heaven's plan of happiness are marriage and the family. Their lofty significance is underscored by Satan's relentless efforts to splinter the family and to undermine the significance of temple ordinances, which bind the family together for eternity. The temple sealing has greater meaning as life unfolds. It will help you draw ever closer together and find greater joy and fulfillment in mortality. — Richard G. Scott

As I got older, the role that I ended up (playing) on One Life to Live was a mother because, by then, I had a stable marriage - so I thought - and a beautiful son and mother roles became what I was doing well. I was still the Latina mom who very much related to people who love family. All those traditional values (were) coming back into my life. — Patricia Mauceri

I am convinced that in the present time, in spite of the difficulties man has to meet another in a state of oblation, communion and gift of self, there are latent hidden forces in him which can be awakened in order to enable him to discover and live this reality of love and fidelity. In order to really penetrate into this mystery of the union of the couple, it is essential that each one acquire an interior maturity, a maturity that is perhaps rare. I would add that in order to be truly united and to remain truly faithful to one another, the couple must listen and be open to the Spirit of God who has reserved for Himself the science of the heart. The heart of man is satisfied only by the Infinite and to discover this Infinite in union he must open himself to the Spirit of God, a spirit of giving, of receiving. The union between the two spouses can thus deepen to such an extent that they enter in a mystical manner into the very life of God Himself. — Jean Vanier

I had been living in Ohio in my own house with my own life when my marriage abruptly came to an end. I had nowhere to go with my two sons, very little money, and not much to do in Ohio except be someone's ex-wife. My parents instantly and very generously invited my family to move back home to New York, where I could begin again. — Isabel Gillies

It was like a death in the family: You go through the mourning stage, then the rebellion, and then all of a sudden you have to find life by yourself ... I loved everything about marriage. I loved having a companion to wake up with and have barbecues with. But things happen and people grow apart. I don't really ever talk about the divorce because it was a heart-wrenching thing to go through. — Jessica Simpson

You can't raise happy kids in a happy family if you aren't happy and don't know who you are. You can't pin your life on someone else's happiness. — Jean Oram

It's a lot to live up to. These pressures of achieving. From the moment you're born, you're pounded with the expectations of what you need to actualize in order to become a success. Go to college. Get married. Raise a family. It's what you're supposed to do. The plans you're supposed to make. The life you're supposed to live. Diverge from the norm and you're frowned upon. Questioned. Shunned. There's something wrong with you if you're not interested in improving yourself. If you can't make a commitment of marriage. If you don't want to have children. So people earn a college degree so they can get a good job. They work at a job they hate just to earn a living. They spend two months' salary on an engagement ring. They pop out a couple of kids they don't really want just so they can fit in. Because it's what their parents did. Because it's what society expects you to do. Because it's safer to take the same path everyone else has traveled. Truth is, no one's listening to Robert Frost. — S.G. Browne

Instead of the country agreeing with her community on the natural rightness of heterosexual marriage as the center of family life, she was now obliged to defend herself against the idea that these views were sexist, homophobic, old-fashioned, and backward. — Arlie Russell Hochschild

Many married women who have deliberately spurned the "hour" of childbearing are unhappy and frustrated. They never discovered the joys of marriage because they refused to surrender to the obligation of their state. In saving themselves, they lost themselves! — Fulton J. Sheen

I saw our future together compressed into a moment; our faces changing, desire having to cope and reinvent itself at each new stratum of familiarity; I saw the gradual dissolution of mutual mystery and romance, its succession by friendship and a sort of tranquil and supernatural loyalty; I felt - with great lightness of being - the bearability of the idea of death, if the life preceding it was bloodily commingled (in children) with hers. A humble little truth: build a truly good life and it will reward you with mastery of the fear of death. It was simple. Having committed to the building of a marriage and family, all sorts of truths came forward and offered themselves. — Glen Duncan

There are certain functions that the family performs. In the first place the family provides society with an orderly means of reproduction, while at the same time the norms of marriage control the potentially disruptive forces of sexuality. Second, the family provides physical and economic support for the child during the early years of dependence. The child receives its primary socialization in the family, learning the essential ideas and values required for adult life. — Adrian Wilson

And then take my family life, my friend. As you know, I've been married twice before and am now on my third marriage. What is that if it's not the third Reich? Else was the first Reich, Hilda was the second Reich, and now Elli is my third Reich. And now I'll let you into a little secret, friend Fallada', dropping his voice to a hollow whisper, 'whenever I quarrel with Elli I'm convinced that the fourth Reich will be along soon! Mark my words, friend Fallada, we'll both live to see the fourth Reich yet! — Hans Fallada

Marriage is a definite no-no. I am totally married to my company. Emotionally, my mother fills up the void in my life. So there it is. My company is a spouse I will never cheat on, and my mother completes me as a son. I think I have a full family unit of my own. — Karan Johar

Until now, you have always lived your life alone. Every decision you've made has been for you and you alone. Now, and for the rest of your days, your life will be tied to another's. Every decision you make will be for both of you. What one does affects the other. You are a family, a team ... inseparable and unbreakable. — Richelle Mead

In a shelter meant for battered women, there were only two reasons a person would decide to leave. One, she had decided to launch out on her own and begin a new life. Or two, she had decided to go back to someone who had hurt her. — Deborah Bedford

To help our youth abide by the principles involved in temple marriage, we must help them to understand that temple marriage is more than just a place where the ceremony occurs; it is a whole orientation to life and marriage and home. It is a culmination of building attitudes toward the Church, chastity, and about our personal relationship with God
and many other things.
"Thus, simply preaching temple marriage is not enough. Our family home evenings, seminaries, institutes, and auxiliaries must build toward this goal, not by exhortation alone but by showing that the beliefs and attitudes involved in temple marriage are those which can bring the kind of life here and in eternity that most humans really want for themselves" (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, p. 244). — Harold B. Lee

The greatest secret of life is never give up. Don't give up on yourself, your dreams and your family. — Lailah Gifty Akita

And what did you never get to do, Emma Smallwood?" he asked lightly, brushing the tears from her face. "Nothing that really matters, in hindsight." She shrugged. "Though I would have liked to travel. And perhaps encourage Aunt Jane to live her life. Live enough for the both of us." "No ordinary dreams? Of marriage, perhaps? A family?" She ducked her head. "Perhaps." Tears filled her eyes once more. He cupped her face in both of his hands and kissed her again. — Julie Klassen

My mother has made choices in her life, as we all must, and she is at peace with them. I can see her peace. She did not cop out on herself. The benefits of her choices are massive-a long, stable marriage to a man she still calls her best friend; a family that has extended now into grandchildren who adore her; a certainty in her own strength. Maybe some things were sacrificed, and my dad made his sacrifices, too-but who amongst us lives without sacrifice? — Elizabeth Gilbert

Why did I stay? My self-esteem was ruined for a very long time. I was socially isolated from my family and friends. I kept everything that was going on in my marriage a secret. I feared for my safety if I left him. I was financially dependent on my spouse. I am an educated woman who was working towards a master's degree when I met him. He persuaded me to stop school after the birth of our first son. Eventually, he trapped me in his web of lies. I believe I suffered from Stockholm syndrome for many years. It isn't easy to leave. Unless you have lived in an abusive relationship, a typical person wouldn't understand. It seems perfectly logical to an outsider that it would be easy to leave an abusive relationship. It truly isn't and walking away is terrifying for a victim. No one deserves to live his or her life as a prisoner. Love shouldn't hurt and abuse is not love. - Mary Laumbach-Perez — Bree Bonchay

Love the family! Defend and promote it as the basic cell of human
society; nurture it as the prime sanctuary of life. Give great care to the
preparation of engaged couples and be close to young married couples, so
that they will be for their children and the whole community an eloquent
testimony of God's love. — Pope John Paul II

You don't want some tacky Vegas fly-by. You're serious. You're serious about friendships, about your work, your family. You're serious about Star Wars, and you active dislike of Jar Jar Binks
"
"Well, God. Come on, anyone who
"
"You're serious," she continued before he went on a Jar Jar rant, "about living your life on your terms, and being easygoing doesn't negate that one bit. You're serious about what kind of kryptonite is more lethal to Superman."
"You have to go with the classic green. I told you, the gold can strip Kryptonians' powers permanently, but
" ...
... "Mkae all the lists you want, Cilla. Love? It's green kryptonite. it powers out all the rest. — Nora Roberts

I think that Richard was more of a one-girl-for-the-rest-of-your-life-marry-and-make-a-family kind of guy. — S.A. Tawks

You may forsake a person, a family, some location of the heart, but scars and memories cannot be discarded like used clothing. — Chris Fabry

What has become clear to me is that it is not the inherent nature of being gay that causes such a reduced life; it is, rather, the social circumstances around being gay: the perceptions of it and the cultural norms that it is said to violate. As some of those norms have changed, I have been able to be gay, to have a marriage, to have a family, and to have - if there is wood to knock on - a fortunate and happy life. — Andrew Solomon

Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family. I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life. — Pope Francis

Luther called marriage "a school for character," and he was right. He realized that his own life was enriched because of the love of his wife and family. — Warren W. Wiersbe

Government should not be involved in marriage at all, I believe. There's no reason for it. I don't get the value of my marriage government, I get it from God. I want the government out of my life. If you want to find a church that marries a gay couple, that's totally fine. My church does not do that and it will fundamentally change what i believe is the eternal family, the basic building block. And I have a right to believe that, and I have a right to go to a church that believes that and we have a right to practice. As long as I'm not trying to force you to do anything. — Glenn Beck

Marriage and family life give us constant opportunities to deny ourselves for the sake of others. And yet self-denial is not a mask for self-contempt, but the necessary means for achieving self-mastery; for self-mastery makes possible our self-giving and self-fulfillment. Sin is not wanting too much, but settling for too little. It's settling for self-gratification rather than self-fulfillment. — Scott Hahn

Mohandas's marriage, which was arranged when he was thirteen, lasted for the next sixty-two years. Despite his enduring reputation for living a life of simplicity and self-denial, he did not come to this easily and struggled in his youth with uncontrolled appetites, both sexual and gastronomic. In violation of his family's religious code, he experimented with meat eating, hoping it would make him large and strong like the carnivorous English. — Mark Kurlansky

For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don't enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are that you're not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn't going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness. — Andy Rooney

It wasn't a lack of attraction to her husband that caused her problems. It was life. It was traffic. It was the Miami Dade Water and Sewer bills, it was trying to get ahead, and trying to be on time. Petty little thing, but zillions of them fused together. — Heather Graham

Free sexual intercourse between young males and respectable girls" was urgently necessary or society was "doomed to fall a victim to incurable neuroses which reduce the enjoyment of life to a minimum, destroy the marriage relation and bring hereditary ruin on the whole coming generation. — Sigmund Freud

We are inter-dependence and co-dependence upon one another. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Some people become family through blood. Some people through marriage. Others find their way into your life and your heart through friendship. Raise a glass to all of our family tonight ... those who share our name and those who we have come to care deeply for. There is no greater fortune than to be surrounded by so much love. — Ruth Cardello

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

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

I'm getting stale. I always do this time of year. I keep my nose to the grindestone and put in long hours and rustle up good meals and do all the chores and run errands and get along with people
and have a fine time doing it and enjoy life. Then I realize, bang, that I'm tired and I don't want to wait on my family for a while and I wish I could go away somewhere and have people wait on me hand and foot, and dress up and go to restaurants and the theater and act like a woman of the world. I feel as if I'd been swallowed up whole by all these powerful DeVotos and I'd like to be me for a while with somebody who never heard the name. — Joan Reardon

I like marriage, family life and I wish to get married again. But opting out of an unhappy marriage was a duty toward myself & my future. — Rossana Condoleo

Parenthood has the power to redefine every aspect of life - marriage, work, relationships with family and friends. Those helpless bundles of power and promise that come into our world show us our true selves- who we are, who we are not, who we wish we could be. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

Husband and wife, must complement each other. — Lailah Gifty Akita

He knew how the audition was going to affect their lives for the next ten weeks as she slowly lost her mind from nerves and the strain of trying to scrounge precious practice time from an already jam-packed life. No matter how much time poor Sam gave her, it would never be quite enough, because what she actually needed was for him and the kids to just temporarily not exist. She needed to slip into another dimension where she was a single, childless person. Just between now and the audition. She needed to go to a mountain chalet (somewhere with good acoustics) and live and breathe nothing but music. Go for walks. Meditate. Eat well. Do all those positive-visualization exercises young musicians did these days. She had an awful suspicion that if she were to do this in reality, she might not even miss Sam and the children that much, or if she did miss them, it would be quite bearable. — Liane Moriarty

That's a much better kiss than the one you gave her when you won the shooting match!"
"And a much better proposal of marriage than the one you gave her yesterday morning!" Minerva chimed in.
"Leave him be!" Celia chided as Jackson went red about the ears. "He saved my life twice, figured out who killed Mama and Papa, and taught Gran some humility. We can't all be good at everything, you know."
Amid the laughter, he kissed her again, but her family didn't let that go on for long. It was cold outside, after all. Gran herded them inside to the great hall, where the servants had brought out refreshments. There, everyone had to take turns congratulating them and clamoring for all the usual details of how it had started and when it had become true love. — Sabrina Jeffries

Material possessions and honors of the world do not endure. But your union as wife, husband, and family can. No sacrifice is too great to have the blessings of an eternal marriage. By making and keeping sacred temple covenants, we evidence our love for God, for our companion, and our real regard for our posterity-even those yet unborn. Our family is the focus of our greatest work and joy in this life; so will it be throughout all eternity. — Russell M. Nelson

We have indeed, felt the effects of the epic journey that has been our life. We have covered a lot of ground, parenting, marriage, career, family and otherwise, and at times, surely, have felt the worse for the wear, especially when different circumstances have chewed us up and spit us out! When it felt as if the kiln was stoked to maximum heat levels, and that we would shatter into a billion pieces that would never all be found! There are some differences now, having a little more seasoning to us. First of all, now we understand there is no such thing as being finished. There is always more firing, refining and glazing we can experience, and it is only a matter of when and how, not if we will do so. Secondly, we look forward to it, knowing now it would take more heat than possible to break us beyond repair. — Connie Kerbs

She wanted to believe him so much, but fear held her in its grasp more firmly than ever before. And if she made the wrong decision, she would have to live with the result for the rest of her life. That could be a long time and she'd already made one wrong choice regarding marriage and love. What if she made another? She sat there remembering the way he'd been good to her children, the way he'd made love to her that first time, soothing her fears. She remembered how he'd finally begun to teach her the shipping business, the impromptu baseball game with Philip, the picnic in her office, the trip to his family home, and all the little things that made her laugh. From the very first he'd been kind to her, while lying repeatedly regarding the business. The business seemed to be his Achilles' heel and he'd just given it to her. — Sylvia McDaniel