More Than A Husband Quotes & Sayings

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

A wife should no more take her husband's name than he should hers. My name is my identity and must not be lost. — Lucy Stone

A man who admires a fine woman, has yet not more reason to wish himself her husband, than one who admired the Hesperian fruit, would have had to wish himself the dragon that kept it. — Alexander Pope

A house does not need a wife any more than it needs a husband. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Hey, baby, it's me. Your shithead of a husband." He spoke and caressed her lifeless hand. Wayne wanted to shake her, do anything to wake her up.

One tear fell from his eye and the ice around his heart smashed to smithereens. With Lily in his life, he had some semblance of control over his emotions. The thought of losing her and never seeing her smile, or to even hear her sing, was breaking him more than any gold digger could his bank balance. — Sam Crescent

Sometimes people can hunger for more than bread.
It is possible that our children, our husband, our wife, do not hunger for bread, do not need clothes, do not lack a house. But are we equally sure that none of them feels alone, abandoned, neglected, needing some affection? That, too, is poverty — Mother Teresa

The Old Testament records the sage words of an old woman in addressing two younger ones: 'The Lord grant', said Naomi, 'that ye may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband!' Who ever heard of a woman finding rest in the house of her husband?
And yet, and yet ! The restless hearts are not
the hearts of wives and of mothers, as many a lonely woman knows. There is no more crushing load than the load of a loveless life. It is a burden that is often beautifully and graciously borne, but its weight is a very real one. The mother may have a bent form, a furrowed brow, and worn, thin hands ; but her heart found its rest for all that. Naomi was an old woman; she knew the world very well, and her words are worth weighing. Heavy luggage is Christ's strange cure for weary hearts. — F.W. Boreham

Someday you'll understand. You'll have your own children, and they'll mean more to you than the world. A wife has to defend her children, even against her own husband. Not that I expect you to be easily cowed. But sometimes, despite all you say and do, your husband won't be dissuaded from folly. When that happens, as a mother you have to close ranks. Your first responsibility is to your children. To salvage what you can. Even if they hate you for it. — David Walton

I have a 22-year-old son, and when my son was born I made a decision to raise him. My husband and I took turns working, and it's easier to raise a kid in the documentary world, where you go away for two weeks or three weeks rather than the months that you spend on a feature. That was and still is much more open to women DPs than the world of fiction. — Maryse Alberti

No disease is more dangerous than a bad husband, for if a woman catches that Pox, she'll languish from it her entire life. — Sabrina Jeffries

Far more than dreading ending up in a care home myself, I dread having to put my husband in one. — Laurie Graham

There was, currently, far more hairy masculinity in her life than any Englishwoman should really have to put up with on a monthly basis. That said, half the pack was away fighting in northern India; someday there would be even more full-moon maleness. She thought of her husband; him she had to deal with on a daily basis. — Gail Carriger

To keep something, you must take care of it. More, you must understand just what sort of care it requires. You must know the rules and abide by them. She could do that. She had been doing it all the months, in the writing of her letters to him. There had been rules to be learned in that matter, and the first of them was the hardest: never say to him what you want him to say to you. Never tell him how sadly you miss him, how it grows no better, how each day without him is sharper than the day before. Set down for him the gay happenings about you, bright little anecdotes, not invented, necessarily, but attractively embellished. Do not bedevil him with the pinings of your faithful heart because he is your husband, your man, your love. For you are writing to none of these. You are writing to a soldier. — Dorothy Parker

I had betrayed my daughter, my son, my husband and now my people. I was hollow and empty, nothing more than a shadow. But shadows have the power to kill. And in that shadow, I became the Raven Queen. — R.J. Madigan

Seen on her own, the woman was not so remarkable. Tall, angular, aquiline features, with the close-cropped hair which was fashionably called an Eton crop, he seemed to remember, in his mother's day, and about her person the stamp of that particular generation. She would be in her middle sixties, he supposed, the masculine shirt with collar and tie, sports jacket, grey tweed skirt coming to mid-calf. Grey stockings and laced black shoes. He had seen the type on golf courses and at dog shows - invariably showing not sporting breeds but pugs - and if you came across them at a party in somebody's house they were quicker on the draw with a cigarette lighter than he was himself, a mere male, with pocket matches. The general belief that they kept house with a more feminine, fluffy companion was not always true. Frequently they boasted, and adored, a golfing husband. ("Don't Look Now") — Daphne Du Maurier

I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could ... that your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of master for the more tender and endearing one of friend. — Abigail Adams

If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children. — Ayelet Waldman

For say what you will of lovers there's nothing so flattering to female vanity as the praise of a husband, because it is universally considered a more difficult matter to retain affection than to win it. — Hannah Crafts

A month ago, Gavin had given his employer four weeks' notice. "I'll get a job around here," he'd told her. "Something low-stress, part-time, maybe. We're not paying rent, and Dad's left us plenty. You should quit, too." A year earlier this news would have filled her with delicious, full fat, chocolate-coated joy. But now, after a grueling routine of shitty work, shitty- weird home life in a house where the shadow of a dead boy walked more solidly than the grownups, shitty headaches, shitty worry about a husband who couldn't keep his dick out of other women, the golden offer just weirded Laine out. She didn't trust it. — Stephen M. Irwin

With tears in her eyes, Alexandra assured him that the husband and father was infinitely more precious to her than the tsar whose throne she had shared. Nicholas finally broke. Laying his head on his wife's breast, he sobbed like a child. — Robert K. Massie

I don't want to get married ... I'm certainly not going to give up the work I've wanted to do all my life for the sake of it, any more than I'd expect my husband, if he were a doctor or a lawyer, for example, to give up practising medicine or law in order to marry me. — Gwethalyn Graham

My husband's a pediatrician, so he and I talk about parenting all the time. You can't raise children who have more shame resilience than you do. — Brene Brown

It is true that not even Christ is seen, but he exists; he is risen, he is alive, he is close to us, more truly than the most enamored husband is close to his wife. Here is the crucial point: to think of Christ not as a person of the past, but as the risen and living Lord, with whom I can speak, whom I can even kiss if I so wish, certain that my kiss does not end on the paper or on the wood of a crucifix, but on a face and on the lips of living flesh (even though spiritualized), happy to receive my kiss. — Raniero Cantalamessa

You may light on a husband that hath no beard. BEATRICE What should I do with him? Dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him. Therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bearherd, and lead his apes into hell. — William Shakespeare

She hauled herself up from the streets, for she was once no more than a courtesan. She is reputed to rule her husband; they say that beneath her fine gowns hangs a prick and her balls clang together like a ring o' bells for the doge has none. — Marina Fiorato

Mom, how do you know if the guy is the guy?"
You mean if he'll be a good husband?" She pauses, then says "The ticket is for the man to love the woman more than she loves him."
Shouldn't it be equal?"
Mom cackles. "It can never be equal."
But what if the woman loves the man more?"
A life of hell awaits her. As women, the deck is stacked against us because time is our enemy. We age, while men season. And trust me, there are plenty of women out there looking for a man, and they don't mind staking a claim on somebody else's husband, no matter how old, creaky, and deaf they are. — Adriana Trigiani

Not every woman is obsessed with shoes. But every woman is more obsessed with shoes than her husband is (although that's not too difficult to accomplish, since your husband has exactly two pairs
black shoes that are ten years old and barely broken in and sneakers that are so dirty they classify as a biohazard). — Peter Scott

Dictating condolences to the mother of a murdered husband whom you've been busily cuckolding for the last three years would take more than his limited social vocabulary. — P.D. James

You deny our vows. You deny my rights. You abuse my pride and leave me nothing of yourself. You send me from you on some lackey's strength. You betray me at every turn."
Shanna met his glare and hurled a fierce reply. "You took my heart and set your fingers firm around it, then, no doubt delighted at your success, you rent it with unfaithfulness."
"Unfaithfulness is only from a husband. You play the same to me and yet do say I am no spouse."
"You plead you are my husband true and spite the suitors come to woo me."
"Yea!" Ruark raged. "Your suitors flock about your skirts in heated lust, and you yield them more than me."
Shanna paused before him, rage etched upon her face. "You're a churlish cad!"
"They fondle you boldly and you set not their hands away from you."
"A knavish blackguard!"
"You are a married woman!"
"I am a widow!"
"You are my wife!" Ruark shouted to be heard over the rising wind outside. — Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Say your husband wants to start a business creating topiary sculptures for clients. You think the idea is bonkers, but you admire his passion, so it seems cruel to veto it. Instead, set a tripwire. Okay, dear, let's give the topiary-sculpture business a shot, but can we agree that we won't invest more than $10,000 of our savings in it? Alternatively, you might say: Go for it, but if you don't have a paying customer within three months, let's talk seriously about Plan B. — Chip Heath

Here is the difference between Oscar Wilde and me. For all the tortures he suffered, for all the ugliness of being punished for loving men, nobody read his lines and asked him: What does your husband think of that? Jail, exile
these were his lot. But never, What does your husband think?
Women may have the vote, but they are not free as long as that reaction erupts. Even those without husbands are judged as if they had offended them merely by writing the truth.
So immovable is the wall around a woman's freedom that she can't do a things without being asked to think of its effect upon some man who is presumed to be more important than she. — Erica Jong

Formal courtesy between husband and wife is even more important than it is between strangers. — Robert A. Heinlein

I have produced no children of my own and my husband is dead," she replied, an acid tone in her voice. "Thus I am more to be pitied than revered. I am expected to give up the shop to my nephew, who will then be able to afford to bring a very good wife from Pakistan. In exchange, I will be given houseroom and no doubt, the honor of taking care of several small children of other family members."
The Major was silent. He was at once appalled and also reluctant to hear any more. This was why people usually talked about the weather. — Helen Simonson

Sadly, there are many forces more powerful and devestating than love... Among them for example, the anger and jealousy of a spurned husband or lover. Fire begets passions, but it also burns. — Hub

I want to stay with you. Watch over you. Follow you always. It's what I was meant to do. Blood binds us, Harry, and some fate more inextricable than that. And I want more selfish things. No one wants to die at seventeen. I want to be young and to live, and to be with the person I love, and I want to travel and see the world. And I want to get married and have children someday, and spoil them rotten so they grow up to be foul little bastards, and I want to die in bed when I'm a hundred and ninety, hexed to death by a jealous husband. — Cassandra Clare

Women in general seem to me to be appreciably more intelligent than men. A great many of them suffer in silence from the imbecilities of their husbands. — H.L. Mencken

But he's a vampire." - Heather
Fidelia shrugged. "Nobody's perfect. My second husband - he had six toes on one foot."
"This is a little more serious than that. Jean-Luc is literally dead half the time."
Fidelia nodded. "For most men, that would be an improvement. — Kerrelyn Sparks

Most women use more brains picking a horse in the third at Belmont than they do picking a husband — Lauren Bacall

I have now been married to my third husband for more than 20 years. But when you've had children with someone you're divorced from, divorce defines everything; it's the lurking fact, a slice of anger in the pie of your brain. — Nora Ephron

Sole Alessandra Torre I've had a lot of firsts in the last three years. Today is a new one. First time throwing a three-year-old Birthday party, Hollywood Style. Too bad my sexier-than-sin husband is absolutely no help. And Cocky is in the pool. And Ben is having a panic attack. And Justin is feeding my child sugar at every opportunity. This is past the dirt, and more than just Hollywood. This is our life as Sole. — Alessandra Torre

So you can tell Kurt from me, that he can go and fuck himself with the rough end of a pineapple, and when he's finished, perhaps he might choose to make a small donation to the Maca Music and More foundation, seeing as my husband had more talent, grace and humility in his little toenail than Kurt fucking Wade will ever have even if he lives for a millennium." With — Lesley Jones

You know, women always could endure more than men. Not only physically, but mentally - did you ever get a peek at some of the husbands? — Will Rogers

A mother experiences more than one death, even though she herself will only die once. She fears for her husband; she fears for her children; again she fears for the women and children who belong to her children ... For each of these-whether for loss of possessions, bodily illness, or undesired misfortune-she mourns and grieves no less than those who suffer. — Saint John Chrysostom

My advice to a new husband is nothing more than 'husbands, love your wives.' And 'love your wife as Christ has loved the church.' Never forget that you are Christ's representative in serving your wife. — J.I. Packer

Court life for a queen of France at that time was, however, stultifyingly routine. Eleanor found that she was expected to be no more than a decorative asset to her husband, the mother of his heirs and the arbiter of good taste and modesty. — Alison Weir

The compulsion to find a lover and husband in a single person has doomed more women to misery than any other illusion. — Carolyn Heilbrun

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

I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: "You're undeserving; so you can't have it." Buy my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. — George Bernard Shaw

When man loves as a biological hypostasis, he inevitably excludes others: the family has priority in love over "strangers," the husband lays exclusive claim to the love of his wife - facts altogether understandable and "natural" for the biological hypostasis. For a man to love someone who is not a member of his family more than his own relations constitutes a transcendence of the exclusiveness which is present in the biological hypostasis. Thus a characteristic of the ecclesial hypostasis is the capacity of the person to love without exclusiveness, and to do this not out of conformity with a moral commandment ("Love thy neighbor," etc.), but out of his "hypostatic constitution," out of the fact that his new birth from the womb of the Church has made him part of a network of relationships which transcends every exclusiveness. — John D. Zizioulas

Do you think that I am an old man? I could prove to this congregation that I am young; for I could find more girls who would choose me for a husband than can carry any of the young men. — Brigham Young

After being married, hearing 'You're hot!' from a total stranger means a hundred times more than hearing it from your husband. — Andrea Savage

The unhappiness of a wife with a good husband is much more devastating than the unhappiness of a wife with a bad husband. — D.H. Lawrence

I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years.
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.
And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture, - a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope ...
Penelope, who really cried. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

We don't think of ourselves as "prayer warriors." A man must've come up with that term - men think anything difficult is war. But prayer is more delicate than battle, especially intercessory prayer. More than just a notion, taking up the burdens of someone else, often someone you don't even know. You close your eyes and listen to a request. Then you have to slip inside their body. You are Tracy Robinson, burning for whiskey. You are Cindy Harris's husband, searching your wife's phone. You are Earl Vernon, washing dirty knots out of your strung-out daughter's hair. If you don't become them, even for a second, a prayer is nothing but words. That's — Brit Bennett

The thing that is my main focus is my family. More than anything, I want to be a good husband to my wife and a good father to my kids. — Rex Hudler

I just never had a friend who cared as you do. My best friend Destiny doesn't understand me, she has a husband and a child. A life I have always wanted, but unfortunately, tables have turned to where I can't find that one guy I could love."
Angel felt bad for feeling lust for the straight woman. She should have known better.
"Jana, men have no idea what they are missing. You are as beautiful as they come and I would appreciate you more than any man would. — Amber M. Kestner

I think there is an awful lot of technology for technology's sake. I have yet to be convinced by my husband that persuading our mobiles to talk to our computers is going to be quicker and more straightforward than scribbling a note in our kitchen diary. — Jojo Moyes

But I should say that kindliness, and sincerity, and if I may say so
modesty
are worth far more to a man, to a husband, than all the wit and beauty in the world. — Daphne Du Maurier

Do you want to kill his love for you? What sort of existence will he have if you rob him of the fruits of his ambition, if you take him from the splendour of a great political career, if you close the doors of public life against him, if you condemn him to sterile failure, he who was made for triumph and success? Women are not meant to judge us but to forgive us when we need forgiveness. Pardon, not punishment, is their mission. Why should you scourge him with rods for a sin done in his youth, before he knew you, before he knew himself? A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. A women's life revolves around curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that man's life progresses. Don't make any terrible mistake, Lady Chiltern. A woman who can keep a man's love, and love him in return, has done all the world wants of women, or should want of them. — Oscar Wilde

As far as he could discover, there were no signs of spring. The decay that covered the surface of the mottled ground was not the kind in which life generates. Last year, he remembered, May had failed to quicken these soiled fields. It had taken all the brutality of July to torture a few green spikes through the exhausted dirt.
What the little park needed, even more than he did, was a drink. Neither alcohol nor rain would do. Tomorrow, in his column, he would ask Broken-hearted, Sick-of-it-all, Desperate, Disillusioned-with-tubercular-husband and the rest of his correspondents to come here and water the soil with their tears. Flowers would then spring up, flowers that smelled of feet.
"Ah, humanity ... " But he was heavy with shadow and the joke went into a dying fall. He trist to break its fall by laughing at himself. — Nathanael West

If you were looking aside and mentally adding up the hours until the execution of a young killer, all that registered was something dark flashing by. But if you happened to be gazing directly at the window in question and you happened as well to be feeling unprecedentedly calm, four-tenths of a second was more than enough time to identify the falling object as your husband of forty-seven years. — Jonathan Franzen

It is easier to be a lover than a husband, for the same reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day, than to say bright things from time to time. — Honore De Balzac

He turned back to Lara, his alert gaze raking over her tearful face. Somehow the solid reality of his presence eased her panic. He folded her in his arms, anchoring her against his chest, murmuring quietly into her hair.
Sniffling, Lara reached inside his waistcoat until her palm rested over the steady beat of his heart. The sensation of his warm breath sinking down to her scalp me her quiver. It was so terribly intimate, crying in his arms ... even more personal than making love. But he had never felt so much like a husband to her as he did in this moment. Quieting, she inhaled his familiar scent and let out a shaky sigh. — Lisa Kleypas

A challenging career suddenly seemed more productive to me because I could measure the results of my work. These precious little ones had endless needs. They were busy little sinful creatures who demanded all of my body, time, life, emotions, and attention! As much as I loved my children, I often felt like a failure. Surely someone else could do a better job with these precious ones than I. And what exactly was I supposed to be accomplishing anyway? Was I wasting my time? What had this husband, who professed to love me, done to me? — Sally Clarkson

To the majority of those on the job his presence had been magical. Years afterward, the wife of one of the steam-shovel engineers, Mrs. Rose van Hardevald, would recall, "We saw him ... on the end of the train. Jan got small flags for the children, and told us about when the train would pass ... Mr. Roosevelt flashed us one of his well-known toothy smiles and waved his hat at the children ... " In an instant, she said, she understood her husband's faith in the man. "And I was more certain than ever that we ourselves would not leave until it [the canal] was finished." Two years before, they had been living in Wyoming on a lonely stop on the Union Pacific. When her husband heard of the work at Panama, he had immediately wanted to go, because, he told her, "With Teddy Roosevelt, anything is possible." At the time neither of them had known quite where Panama was located. — David McCullough

Note the significant fact that we always hear of the "fall of man," not the fall of woman, showing that the consensus of human thought has been more unerring than masculine interpretation. Reading this narrative carefully, it is amazing that any set of men ever claimed that the dogma of the inferiority of woman is here set forth. The conduct of Eve from the beginning to the end is so superior to that of Adam. The command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge was given to the man alone before woman was formed. Genesis ii, 17. Therefore the injunction was not brought to Eve with the impressive solemnity of a Divine Voice, but whispered to her by her husband and equal. It was a serpent supernaturally endowed, a seraphim as Scott and other commentators have claimed, who talked with Eve, and whose words might reasonably seem superior to the second-hand story of her — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

We were in love, high on the novelty of marriage. The words husband and wife felt as if they had a shine to them. They were simply more fun to say than all the other words we knew. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I believe no gentleman would like to have his family affairs neglected because his wife was filling her head with crotchets and pothooks, and who, because she understood a few scraps of Latin, valued that more than minding her needle or providing her husband's dinner. — Sarah Fielding

What would you think of an engineer who expounded the art of flying without revealing the secrets of the engine and propeller? That's what you do, you engineer of the human soul. Just that. You're a coward. You want the raisins out of my cake but you don't want the thorns of my roses. Haven't you too, little psychiatrist, been cracking silly jokes about me? Haven't you ridiculed me as "the prophet of bigger and better orgasms"? Have you never heard the whimpering of a young wife whose body has been desecrated by an impotent husband? Or the anguished cry of an adolescent bursting with unfulfilled love? Does your security still mean more to you than your patient? How long will you go on valuing your respectability above your medical mission? How long will you refuse to see that your pussyfooting procrastination is costing millions their lives? — Wilhelm Reich

Better be an old maid, a woman with herself as a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one. — Herman Melville

For two weeks, I lay awake at night and said Hail Marys over and over to stop my heart from beating too fast. I suddenly realized how much being a husband was about fear: fear of not being able to keep somebody safe, of not being able to protect somebody from all the bad stuff you want to protect them from. Knowing they have more tears in them than you will be able to keep them from crying. I realized that Renee had seen me fail, and that she was the person I was going to be failing in front for the rest of my life. It was just a little failure, but it promised bigger failures to come. Additional ones, anyway. But that's who your wife is, the person you fail in front of. Love it so confusing; there's no peace of mind. — Rob Sheffield

High male earnings have also become less important to women. A 2001 poll in the United States found that 80 percent of women in their twenties believed that having a husband who can talk about his feelings was more important than having one who makes a good living.11 — Stephanie Coontz

Women's work, married or unmarried, is menial and low paid. Women's right to possess property is curtailed, more if they are married. How can marriage provide security? In any case a husband is a possession which can be lost or stolen and the abandoned wife of thirty odd with a couple of children is far more desolate and insecure in her responsibility than an unmarried woman with or without children ever could be. — Germaine Greer

At least in the United States, most economic resentment is not directed toward billionaires or high-roller financiers - not even corrupt ones. It's directed at the guy down the hall who got a bigger raise. It's directed at the husband of your wife's sister, because he earns 20 percent more than you do. — Tyler Cowen

Received a gift - it was the first decent piece of instruction about marriage I had ever been given in my twenty-five years of life. "Does your husband make you a better person?" Edra asked. There I was in that sky-blue pool beneath a bright blue sky, my fingers breaking apart the light on the water, and I had no idea what she was talking about. "Are you smarter, kinder, more generous, more compassionate, a better writer?" she said, running down her list. "Does he make you better?" "That's not the question," I said. "It's so much more complicated than that." "It's not more complicated than that, — Ann Patchett

If you're not broadcasting what people feel is their truth as it relates to you, well that becomes a problem. If your not broadcasting how much you love your boyfriend or husband via social media, problems occur in the home and I really think this is happening more than we acknowledge. — Aeriel Miranda

We should all know this: that listening is not talking; [it] is the gifted and great role and the imaginative role. And the true listener is much more beloved, magnetic than the talker, and he is more effective, and learns more and does more good. And so try listening. Listen to your wife, your husband, your father, your mother, your children, your friends; to those who love you and those who don't, to those who bore you, to your enemies. It will work a small miracle. And perhaps a great one. — Brenda Ueland

But Miss Ferguson preferred science over penmanship. Philosophy over etiquette. And, dear heavens preserve them all, mathematics over everything. Not simply numbering that could see a wife through her household accounts. Algebra. Geometry. Indecipherable equations made up of unrecognizable symbols that meant nothing to anyone but the chit herself. It was enough to give Miss Chase hives.

The girl wasn't even saved by having any proper feminine skills. She could not tat or sing or draw. Her needlework was execrable, and her Italian worse. In fact, her only skills were completely unacceptable, as no one wanted a wife who could speak German, discuss physics, or bring down more pheasant than her husband. — Eileen Dreyer

mong the hundred thousand mysterious influences which a man exercises over a woman who loves him, I doubt if there is any more irresistible to her than the influence of his voice. I am not one of those women who shed tears on the smallest provocation: it is not in my temperament, I suppose. But when I heard that little natural change in his tone my mind went back (I can't say why) to the happy day when I first owned that I loved him. I burst out crying. — Wilkie Collins

Marriage is the most licentious of human institutions
I say the most licentious of human institutions: that is the secret of its popularity.And a woman seeking a husband is the most unscrupulous of all the beasts of prey. The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error. — George Bernard Shaw

You should respect Ian, Adam." Adam frowned. "I thought you would be more fun than this." Eve leaned over. "Alex told me Ian has a black eye." Adam fist pumped. "Fuck, yeah. You go, girl." Serena slapped at her husband's arm. "Be polite." Jake was on the other side of Serena, a mug of coffee in his hand. "He doesn't know how. He thinks tact is a made-up word. — Lexi Blake

Italian husbands, in order to buy their wives a fur, spend more than all their European collegues. — Indro Montanelli

Nothing is more inspiring in today's world of easily dissolved marriages than to observe a husband and wife quietly appreciating and enjoying each other's friendship year in and year out as they experience together the blessings and trials of mortality. — Marlin K. Jensen

Yes,' she said, in a faraway voice, 'he was my husband, but he was much more than that. He was my best friend, my partner in grammar, and the only person I knew who could whistle with crackers in his mouth. — Lemony Snicket

In 1840, the year that Victoria and Albert were married, no woman in the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland could vote, be elected to parliament or any other public office, attend the university, or enter a profession. If a woman married, her property, her earnings, her children, and her body legally belonged to her husband, to do with as he willed. The world of business was more hostile to women in 1840 than it had been in 1740 or 1640, and though many women were forced to work, a bare handful could make a living wage. — Gillian Gill

Travis, I love you with all of my being, but I love Cassie, too. And right now she needs me more than you do. Forgive me. Meri She loved him. The wonder of the statement seeped into him, but the joy that should have accompanied the knowledge faded beneath his growing frustration and fear. How could she possibly think that anyone needed her more than he did? She was his heart, his very life. If anything happened to her . . . Travis tore the top page from the tablet and hardened his jaw. He'd just have to make sure nothing did happen. After all, if a wife was going to tell her husband she loved him, she ought to do it in person. And he aimed to see that she did precisely that. Right after he kissed the living fire out of her and showed her exactly how much he truly needed her. — Karen Witemeyer

My husband is a fall-away Catholic, but with a vengeance. He's actually more of a feminist than I am. — Olympia Dukakis

Melancholy, amorous and barbaric, these tales exalted adulterous love as the only true kind, while in the real life of the same society adultery was a crime, not to mention a sin. If found out, it dishonored the lady and shamed the husband, a fellow knight. It was understood that he had the right to kill both unfaithful wife and lover. Nothing fits in this canon. The gay, the elevating, the ennobling pursuit is founded upon sin and invites the dishonor it is supposed to avert. Courtly love was a greater tangle of irreconcilables even than usury. It remained artificial, a literary convention, a fantasy (like modern pornography) more for purposes of — Barbara W. Tuchman

She had now reached an age when one starts looking for a husband rather more systematically than one does at nineteen or even at twenty-one. — Barbara Pym

I am stricken with the peculiar curse of being a 21st-century woman who makes more than the man she's living with - first with a husband for 13 years and now with a new partner. — Sandra Tsing Loh

A noble maiden must convey dignity and chastity without appearing to think about either one. Let common-born girls tussle in the hay with their loutish swains. The future of your family's bloodline and your future lord's bloodline should be your greatest concern. Let no man but one of your family embrace you. Let no man but your betrothed kiss any more than your fingertips; let your betrothed kiss you only on fingers, cheek, or forehead, lest he think you unchaste. And never allow yourself to be alone with a man, to safeguard the precious jewel of you reputation. No well-born maiden ever suffered from keeping her suitors at arm's length. Your chastity will make you a prize to you future husband's house and an honor to your own."
- form Advice to a Young Noblewoman, by Lady Fronia of Whitehall (in Maren) given to Ally on her twelfth birthday by her godmother, Queen Thayet — Tamora Pierce

I like to look good, but I like my body to function well more than anything. For me, it's as spiritual and intellectual as it is physical. And emotional. I'm a better husband, I'm a better father, if my body is physically functioning at the highest possible levels. — Willi Smith

When I first met my husband, he had a very good job - company car, pension plan, grudging respect from his staff - the lot. I, on the other hand, was badly paid and devoid of ambition. Then I had a couple of books published and confounded all expectations by starting to earn more than he did. — Marian Keyes

My requirements in a husband are simple," she informed him smoothly. "All I want is a man who will hold me above everything else, including his horse, his fortune, and his pride."
Hearing that simple yet seemingly impossible declaration was like a blow to Grey's solar plexus. She was going to be so disappointed, the poor thing. How perverted was it of him to secretly rejoice over her wants? She might find a man who could love her more than his horse, perhaps even more than his fortune, but never would she find a man willing to sacrifice his pride-not without that same man coming to hate her for it eventually.
"More than his horse?" he joked. "My dear girl, you ask too much. — Kathryn Smith

It's your turn to be the centre, to give others what was given to you for so long. You've got to give security to young people and peace to your husband, and a sort of charity to the old. You've got to let the people who work for you depend on you. You've got to cover up a few more troubles than you show, and be a little more patient than the average person, and do a little more instead of a little less than your share. The light and glitter of the world is in your hands. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Good heavens above, the poor child has more freckles than there are stars in the sky! if she doesn't start using a good bleaching lotion at once, she'll never catch a good husband! -James Augustus Peregrine Pympoole-Bothame — Kerstin Gier

We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home; that a woman should not aspire to achieve more than her male counterparts and, particularly, not more than her husband. — Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

Primer of Love [Lesson 14]
I think the best thing I can do is to be a distraction.
A husband lives and breathes his work all day long.
If he comes home to more table thumping,
how can the poor man ever relax?
- Jackie Kennedy

Lesson 14) Learn to nip lover's quarrels in the bud
by distraction and humor -- without raising your voice.

This does not include mastering that passive aggressive ploy called the silent treatment which is much louder and destructive than outright screaming. Nipping techniques include distraction, humor, rough sex and counting backwards from MCLV in Latin.Once you've mastered this technique, you'll spend the night neatly tucked in each other's arms -- though her ass will be a little sore. No argument about that. — Beryl Dov

The present relationship existing between husband and wife, where one claims a command over the actions of the other, is nothing more than a remnant of the old leaven of slavery. It is necessarily destructive of refined love; for how can a man continue to regard as his type of the ideal a being whom he has, be denying an equality of privilege with himself, degraded to something below himself? — Herbert Spencer

I turned to him, wishing for nothing more than to tell him who I was.
That I was supposed to be Melanie's husband, not him.
That I adored her more than any other creature that had ever lived and always would.
That I had every intention of taking her away from him. — A.L. Jackson