Were Not Married Quotes & Sayings

She was heading for the piano, and something told me that it was her intention to sing old folk songs, a pastime to which, as I have indicated, she devoted not a little of her leisure. She was particularly given to indulgence in this nuisance when her soul had been undergoing an upheaval and required soothing, as of course it probably did at this juncture.
My fears were realized. She sang two in rapid succession, and the thought that this sort of thing would be a permanent feature of our married life chilled me to the core. — P.G. Wodehouse

But if you've always wanted to travel, then why don't you?" I very nearly shrugged before I remembered not to. "I can't." "Why not?' "Because . . . because . . . it's just not done. How would I do it? What would I say?" He grinned. "Bon voyage - I'm off to the Continent. That seemed to work for me." "But you're a man." "Yes. Yes, I am." "You can do whatever you want. But I'm a girl - " "Yes, indeed you are!" I frowned. He was teasing me. "Forgive me. As you were saying?" "I cannot just go wherever I want whenever I please. I have to be escorted. And who would escort me abroad?" "I would." I laughed. "I would!" His protest was tinged by his own laughter. "You can't." "And why not?" "Because we aren't - " I was going to say married, but that would have been presumptuous. "Because you can't. It wouldn't be proper." "Far be it from me to know polite from improper, but I believe you just danced your first waltz properly. With your eyes open. — Siri Mitchell

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a really nice man who wishes she were not. — Mary Catherine Bateson

The only reason we were married in such haste was that my mother begged me not to marry Andrew at all. One of you in a marriage has to be soft, she said. One of you has to know how to say, Have it your way. That's not going to be you, dear, so it might as well be the man. — Chris Cleave

Throughout adolescence, Muslim men receive strong messages about male dominance in Marriage. The Koran is highly male-focused, with women being of little importance. Mohammed married as many women as he wanted, even a nine-year-old girl. Polygamy was acceptable and women were given in marriage with little consideration. Rules and punishments for women are far harsher than for men. [ ... ] Women are told that their purpose is to please the man and have children. Men are taught that sex with an in infidel woman, especially in another country, is not a sin against Allah. For a Muslim woman, sex with any man except her husband is a crime. — Darrel Ray

You need to add a new voice inside your head, one that says, "So what?" What if you don't get married by 30? So what? What if you haven't paid off your loans or debt by 35? So what? What if you're not a stand-out success by 28? So what? If you were to achieve everything you wanted in life by the age of 30, then what would you do for the next fifty years? You have time. You don't have to get to everything right now. — Alexandra Robbins

She was honest enough to admit she married him because actions other men would not conceive of to start with or carry out to finish with were ordinary for [him] ... not that she ever wanted or needed a husband who would steal without compunction, but she wanted that toughness, that hard eyed indifference to what anyone else thought, to - danger. — Ellen O'Connell

It was really bizarre, that Sabzian business. You know I had no interest in being photographed before this incident. But then not just Sabzian - many other people started pretending they were me! One of them actually got married while pretending he was me! My face became publicly recognizable soon after I decided to have a few photographs of me available in public to prevent these sorts of identity thefts. It is really pathetic, if you think of it. Filmmakers and filmmaking is so popular in Iran because all other forms of expression have been denied to people. — Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Of course, human tissue completely It's unlikely that scar was composed of the same molecules. Do you think it is really appropriate to consider people to be the same entity they were seven years earlier? Because, physically, they're not. They're connected but every part has changed. Like a renovated house. It seems like after seven years you should not be liable for things you did before. Why should a man be imprisoned for a crime committed by a different physical entity? Should we expect a couple to stay married when they barely share a molecule with the people who said 'I do'? I don't think so. — Max Barry

Cyrus wanted a woman to take care of Adam. He needed someone to keep house and cook, and a servant cost money. He was a vigorous man and needed the body of a woman, and that too cost money- unless you were married to it. Within two weeks Cyrus had wooed, wedded, bedded, and impregnated her. His neighbors did not find his action hasty. It was quite normal in that day for a man to use up three or four wives in a normal lifetime. p.19 — John Steinbeck

People were saying that David Geffen and I had gotten married and it just blew me away. Not that they thought I was gay, but that they thought I could land a guy that hot. — Keanu Reeves

Kaushik, what about a picture?" my father suggested. I shook my head. I had left my camera, my father's old Yashica, at school. "But you always have it with you." That look of irritated disappointment, the one that had appeared the day my mother died and was missing now that he'd married Chitra, passed briefly across my father's face. "I forgot it," I said. It was true, I did always have the camera with me. Even on quiet weekends when I came home and my father and I saw no one I would bring it, taking it with me on walks. This time I had left it behind, knowing that I would not want to document anything. "I don't understand," my father said. "Neither do I," I replied. "You haven't wanted a picture of anything in years." "That's not true." "It is." We were stating facts and at the same time arguing, an argument whose depths only he and I could fully comprehend. — Jhumpa Lahiri

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

I loved you because there was no other place for me to go. We were married because we did not know what else to do with each other. You never knew me, nothing about me, what died inside me, what lived invisibly. — Aleksandar Hemon

It was (Nick Frost's) first-ever bedroom scene and my first-ever bedroom scene ... not that we were actually doing much, but we did have to lie sort of semi-nude under the sheets. And he was incredibly sort of vibrant and outgoing, but then he suddenly got very, like, 'I'm engaged and I'm getting married!' And I was, 'Okay, that's good. I just won't be touching you, then!' — Talulah Riley

Wolf," she said. "Married is wonderful, married is lovely. But I loved you before that, and you were mine before that. Only you for me - only me for you. That's how it was before our marriage." The smile fell away and left her pale and determined. "That's how it was when I found you in that pit trap all those years ago - I knew as soon as I first saw your eyes. But then, I've known all my life what love is. It took you, who had nothing to compare it to, rather longer to figure out, to understand what is between us. But even when you did not understand or recognize it - it was always love. — Patricia Briggs

But then she said something I thought was wise. She said she had married a guy, and he was just a guy. And that freed her to really love him as a guy, not as an ultimate problem solver. And because her husband believed she was just a girl, he was free to really love her too. Neither needed the other to make everything okay. They were simply content to have good company through life's conflicts. I thought that was beautiful. — Donald Miller

She looked at me, confused. "He hardly knew me. My parents dated and got married before we knew what happened. Let's just say we were not
brought into the loop on that decision."
"That's weird. I wasn't brought into the loop with my parents' marriage either."
"Really? How old were you?"
"Twelve months."
She giggled. "I can't imagine why they didn't ask your opinion. — Darynda Jones

At the end of that week, Navin arrived to marry me. I was repulsed by the sight of him, not because I had betrayed him but because he still breathed, because he was there for me and had countless more days to live. And yet without his even realizing it, firmly but without force, Navin pulled me away from you, as the final gust of autumn wind pulls the last leaves from the trees. We were married, we were blessed, my hand was placed on top of his, and the ends of our clothing were knotted together. I felt the weight of each ritual, felt the ground once more underfoot. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Leibniz was somewhat mean about money. When any young lady at the court of Hanover married, he used to give her what he called a "wedding present," consisting of useful maxims, ending up with the advice not to give up washing now that she had secured a husband. History does not record whether the brides were grateful. — Bertrand Russell

In his business, he observed human nature and came to certain conclusions about it. The conclusions lacked wisdom and originality; in fact, they were tiresome. But they were important to McGarrity because he had figured them out for himself. In the first years of their marriage, he had tried to tell Mae about these conclusions, but all she said was, "I can imagine." Sometimes she varied by saying, "I can just imagine." Gradually then, because he could not share his inner self with her, he lost the power of being a husband to her, and she was unfaithful to him. — Betty Smith

If there were even one spark of evidence from antiquity that Jesus even may have gotten married, then as a historian, I would have to weigh this evidence against the total absence of such information in either Scripture or the early church traditions. But there is no such spark-not a scintilla of evidence-anywhere in historical sources. Even where one might expect to find such claims in the bizarre, second-century, apocryphal gospels ... there is no reference that Jesus ever got married. — Paul L. Maier

Regarding her thoughtfully, St. Vincent leaned down to remove her shoes. "You'll be more comfortable without these," he said. "For God's sake, don't shy away. I'm not going to molest you in the carriage." Untying the laces, he continued in a silken tone, "And if I were so inclined it's of little consequence, since we're going to be married soon." He grinned as she jerked her stocking-clad foot away from him, and he reached for the other. — Lisa Kleypas

Perceiving myself in a blunder, I attempted to correct it. I might have seen there was too great a disparity between the ages of the parties to make it likely that they were man and wife. One was about forty: a period of mental vigour at which men seldom cherish the delusion of being married for love by girls: that dream is reserved for the solace of our declining years. The other did not look seventeen. — Emily Bronte

I asked you not to train that horse," Christopher snapped, "and you agreed."
Beatrix felt instantly defensive. She was accustomed to doing as she pleased. This was certainly not the first time she'd ever fallen from a horse, nor the last.
"You didn't ask that specifically," she said reasonably, "you asked me not to do anything dangerous. And in my opinion, it wasn't."
Instead of calming Christopher, that seemed to enrage him even further. "In light of the fact that you were nearly flattened like a pikelet just now, I'd say you were wrong."
Beatrix was intent on winning the argument. "Well, it doesn't matter in any case, because the promise I made was for after we married. And we're not married yet."
Leo covered his eyes with his hand, shook his head, and retreated from her vision. — Lisa Kleypas

We should do that," he whispered. "Wear flowers in our hair?" I was watching the ceremony and not really paying attention to Luka, despite the warmth of his arm. Tobin's eldest brother, the head of the household since their father's death some years ago, had come forward. Skarpin had surprised us by being as garrulous and emotional as Tobin and Ulfrid were silent and controlled. His red beard was a sharp contrast to his shaved head, and he had six earrings in each ear, a sign that he was a wealthy landowner. He took the loaf of bread from the priest and began the traditional praising of the bride's skills. "No," Luka said. "We should get married." Now I gave him my full attention. "What? — Jessica Day George

I had a dream about you. We were married and I walked into the room to see you in my new black dress and high heels and I said "That's not what I meant when I said I bought them for you". — Georgia Saratsioti

You married me for my brains? I can't believe it."
He grinned. "Well, among other things."
"My charming personality?"
He chuckled. "Not exactly. You have the nicest looking legs ever."
"What?"
"Hey! I can't help it. I guess I'm just a leg man. Personality comes in second. Brains are third."
"Brains are third?" she said in mock disappointment.
"So why did you marry me?"
"Hmmm." Amelia tapped his lips. "Your sweet kisses were the main reason. The rest of you came as a package deal."
"The rest of me?" he said incredulously. "Well, at least I'm a good kisser. I can live with that. — Linda Weaver Clarke

They still had sexual relations with another, slept in the same bed, shared kisses and intimacy and matrimonial fluid, however both were not married to each other in that sense, although there was a piece of paper that said otherwise. — Keira D. Skye

He married and made a home. He went endlessly from house to house and spoke the mission and the truth. The hopeless suffering of his people made in him a madness, a wild and evil feeling of destruction. At times he drank strong liquor and beat his head against the floor. In his heart there was a savage violence, and once he grasped the poker from the hearth and struck down his wife. She took Hamilton, Karl Marx, William, and Portia with her to her father's home. He wrestled in his spirit and fought down the evil blackness. But Daisy did not come back. And eight years later when she died his sons were not children anymore and they did not return to him. He was left an old man in an empty house. — Carson McCullers

Jack? ... No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations ... I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment's solitude. The only really safe name is Ernest. — Oscar Wilde

By the time the sixties hit their home bases, we the kids, were already born, and our parents found themselves stuck between an entrenched belief that children needed to be raised in a traditional household, and a new sense that anything was possible, that the alternative lifestyle was out there for the asking. There they were in marriages they once thought were a necessity and with children they'd had almost by accident in a world that was suddenly saying, 'No necessities! No accidents! Drop Everything!' A little too old to take full advantage of the cultural revolution, our parents just got all the fallout. Freedom hit them obliquely, and invidiously, rather than head-on. Instead of waiting longer to get married, our parents got divorced; Instead of becoming feminists, our mothers were left to become displaced homemakers. A lot of unhappy situations were dissolved by people who were not quite young or free enough to start again. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

I have a theory," Emily said. "I'm not a djinni," Yacub replied. "I'm not dead either." "I might have never met Harriet if it wasn't for you." Yacub shook his head. "You'd been following each other for so long, at some point you were bound to collide." "Maybe. I saw you fall. And I know you saved Jack's life. And Harriet and Michael - you helped them." "No. They are married. They are happy." "What do you really think about all of us, Yacub?" He shrugged. "I'm here. This is where I belong." "Do you think?" Yacub shrugged again. "Sometimes. Some days." "Tell me about when you were on the plane, Yacub." A frown passed across Yacub's face. "What plane? — Kate Pullinger

You know, there was a time when childbirth was possibly the most terrifying thing you could do in your life, and you were literally looking death in the face when you went ahead with it. And so this is a kind of flashback to a time when that's what every woman went through. Not that they got ripped apart, but they had no guarantees about whether they were going to live through it or not.
You know, I recently read - and I don't read nonfiction, generally - Becoming Jane Austen. That's the one subject that would get me to go out and read nonfiction. And the author's conclusion was that one of the reason's Jane Austen might not have married when she did have the opportunity ... well, she watched her very dear nieces and friends die in childbirth! And it was like a death sentence: You get married and you will have children. You have children and you will die. (Laughs) I mean, it was a terrifying world. — Stephenie Meyer

So after he married her, he set out not really to woo her, which he thought would be cheating when affairs of state had almost forced them to get married in the first place, but to be as unflaggingly nice to her as he thought he could get away with. Their delight in each other after they became the sort of lovers that minstrels make ballads about (although it was certainly unpoetic of them to be married to each other) was so apparent that it spilled over into their dealings with their people; and the court became a more joyful place than it had been for many a long royal generation. And the minstrels did make ballads about them, even though they were married to each other. — Robin McKinley

Were I not married to the director, I'm not sure I'd know anything about the 'Underworld' sequel. — Kate Beckinsale

The old family carriage and the two lady's maids were there,
as necessaries of life; but London society was not within her reach. It was therefore the case that they had not heard very much about Lizzie Eustace. But they had heard something. "I hope she won't be too fond of going out," said Amelia, the second girl.
"Or extravagant," said Georgina, the third.
"There was some story of her being terribly in debt when she married Sir Florian Eustace," said Diana, the fourth.
"Frederic will be sure to see to that," said Augusta, the eldest.
"She is very beautiful," said Lydia, the fifth.
"And clever," said Cecilia, the sixth.
"Beauty and cleverness won't make a good wife," said Amelia, who was the wise one of the family.
"Frederic will be sure to see that she doesn't go wrong," said Augusta who was not wise. — Anthony Trollope

Ah, dear Reader, is there a married man living who hasn't purged his drawers and closets of premarital memorabilia, only to have one more incriminating relic from yester-life rear its lovely head? Kristy contends that old flames never die, not completely. They smolder for years in hidden places. They flare up again just when you think you're over them. They can burn you if you don't deal with them. Such is the price I've had to pay for not rooting out the evidence of my life B.C. (Before Contentment). Or, perhaps, for having planted it too well.
But that, you see, is no longer an issue. Shall I tell you the crux of this argument? A man with a past can be forgiven. A man without one cannot be trusted. If there were no pictures in my drawer for Kirsty to uncover, I would have had to produce some. — Ted Gargiulo

Young men!" he snorted to Erak. "They think a pretty face can cure every ill."
"Some of us can remember back that far. Halt," Erak told him with a grin. "I suppose that's all far behind an old hack like you. Svengal told me you were settling down. Some plump, motherly widow seizing her last chance with a broken-down old gray bear, is she?"
Erak, of course, had been told by Svengal that Halt had recently married a great beauty. But he enjoyed getting a reaction from the smaller man. Halt's one-eyed stare locked onto the Oberjarl.
"When we get back, I'd advise you not to refer to Pauline as a 'plump, motherly widow' in her hearing. She's very good with that dagger she carries and you need your ears to keep that ridiculous helmet of yours in place. — John Flanagan

I left home at 17, traveled. I got married when I was 21. That's a young age. As it turned out, things were fine, then not so fine, and then it was a blunder. That happens all the time. — Fred Couples

I had a vision of you, the first time I stepped into Grey House, the night Edward died. That was why I kept staring at you while he lay on the bed, convulsing between us. I had seen you standing before me, your hand in mine. I could not hear what was said between us, but there was a sense of belonging to you, as if I had always known you somehow, and you had been waiting for me. It came as rather a nasty shock to realise you were already married. — Deanna Raybourn

Even when the divorce papers had come in the mail, even when he'd finally signed them, he'd still felt married, still felt as if he had to be faithful to those vows even though they were empty and meaningless now. Perhaps that was just because he was afraid of moving past those vows, afraid of starting over. So now he looked straight into the eyes of that fear. The fear of being hurt again. The fear of not being worthy of a woman's love. The fear of failure. — Ann H. Gabhart

They all knew about me and Dimitri," I said, wondering if I'd be saying any of this sober. "But I never told them we were together."
"You didn't have to. It's written all over your face."
"They acted like I was his widow or something."
"You might as well be." We reached the room, and she helped me sit down on the bed. "Not a lot of people get married around here. If you're with someone long enough, they figure it's almost the same." ~Rose & Sydney, Pg.140/141 — Richelle Mead

I want a cigarette. I want a cigarette. I want to kill the woman my husband loves. This is all her fault. I got pregnant to secure the man that I had already married. A woman shouldn't have to do that. She should feel safe in her marriage. That's why you got married - to feel safe from all the men who were trying to siphon your soul. I'd yielded my soul to Caleb willingly. Offered it up like a sacrificial lamb. Now, I was not only going to have to compete with the memory of another woman, but a shriveled up baby. He was already staring into her eyes like he could see the Grand Canyon tucked away in her irises. I — Tarryn Fisher

The breakdown of the black community, in order to maintain slavery, began with the breakdown of the black family. Men and women were not legally allowed to get married because you couldn't have that kind of love. It might get in the way of the economics of slavery. Your children could be taken from you and literally sold down the river. — Kerry Washington

Oh, I was lucky, you know, to get anyone. I was what they called an old bride of twenty-six. Of course I married him. Everyone needs to keep something private from their family.
Like a shutter in a rainstorm, banging against the window, I venture forth, retreat back, try afresh, retreat again. Nothing changes in my life and yet nothing is the same.
That did not help, Ed knew as the words hung between them and he had that all-too-familiar sensation of wanting to claw them from the air and stuff them back in his mouth.
We were all in small pieces that didn't fit together, too many countries, too many scars, too many secrets inside us.
How do you make a stranger so intimate when they could easily destroy you? — Tracy Chevalier

It wasn't all that long ago that he'd stood where I did, that my mom's face was one of many in his
world. And yet, despite all the impediments and all the time that had passed, they were still deeply in
love.
It was obvious in everything, from their shared room to the way they fretted over each other to the
way they seemed to be incapable of not flirting with each other even after being married so long. — Kiera Cass

There's a current running and a pretty stiff offshore breeze." "Merde," said Freycinet again. He went forward along the rail and lay down beside the anchor windlass, peering into the chains. "He's a cook too," Gillian said, speaking softly. "How come you're not more like him?" "An accident of birth," Blessington said. "If we were married," she said, "you wouldn't have to skip on your visa." "Ah," said Blessington, "don't think it hasn't occurred to me. Nice to be a legal resident." "Legal my ass," she said. Freycinet suddenly turned and watched them. He showed them the squint, the bared canines. "What — Robert Stone

Mrs. Fisher had never cared for macaroni, especially not this long, worm-shaped variety. She found it difficult to eat
slippery, wriggling off her fork, making her look, she felt, undignified when, having got it as she supposed into her mouth, ends of it yet hung out. Always, too, when she ate it she was reminded of Mr. Fisher. He had during their married life behaved very much like macaroni. He had slipped, he had wriggled, he had made her feel undignified, and when at last she had got him safe, as she thought, there had invariably been little bits of him that still, as it were, hung out. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

As in most obituaries, the author said little about the man; they rarely do. But the reticence here was greater than usual. It mentioned that Ravenscliff left a wife, but did not say when they married. It said nothing at all about his life, nor where he lived. There were not even any of the usual phrases to give a slight hint: 'a natural raconteur' (loved the sound of his own voice); 'Noted for his generosity to friends' (profligate); 'a formidable enemy . . .' (a brute); 'a severe but fair employer . . .' (a slave-driver); 'devoted to the turf' (never read a book in his life); 'a life-long bachelor' (vice); 'a collector of flowers' (this meant a great womaniser. Why it came to mean such a thing I do not know.) More browsing — Iain Pears

Believe it or not, when we were first married, our combined monthly student loan bills were actually higher than our mortgage. — Michelle Obama

This guy was high on Greg's suspect list. He was German, though he had left in the mid-1930s and gone to London. He was an anti-Nazi but not a Communist: his politics were Social Democrat. He was married to an American girl, an artist. Talking to him over lunch, Greg found no reason for suspicion: he seemed to love living in America and to be interested in little but his work. But with foreigners you could never be quite sure where their ultimate loyalty lay. — Ken Follett

The following "Rules for Female Teachers" were posted by the school board of one town in Massachusetts: Do not get married. Do not leave town at any time without permission of the school board. Do not keep company with men. Be home between the hours of 8 P.M. and 6 A.M. Do not loiter downtown in ice cream stores. Do not smoke. Do not get into a carriage with any man except your father or brother. Do not dress in bright colors. Do not dye your hair. Do not wear any dress more than two inches above the ankle. — Howard Zinn

Well, look at it this way," Robin reasoned as I sat with him and Geoff at their kitchen table that night, half-plastered from the pitcher of margarita they'd blended up. Was I going to have a tequila hangover in the morning? Oh, honey, you bet your sweet ass I was. And how many fucks did I give?
Not a one.
"Even if you were overreacting to read what you read into this guy's offer - which I don't think you were, though I doubt he actually thought it through enough to intend it to be read that way - you still have to ask yourself: What's in it for you, hanging around some motel room waiting for a married man to make a booty call? What benefit would you get out of that situation, or out of prolonging your relationship with him? He might not have meant it to be an insulting offer, but it was absolutely a one hundred percent selfish offer. There was no upside for you whatsoever, unless the sex really was just that amazing. — Amelia C. Gormley

In Miss Chen's English class, we learned, 'To be or not to be ... ' but there's a big gray area in between. Maybe in Shakespeare times people only had two options. Griffin Wilson, he knew that the SATs were just the gateway to a big lifetime of bullshit. To get married and college. To paying taxes and trying to raise a kid who's not a school shooter. And Griffin Wilson knew drugs are only a patch. After drugs, you're always going to need more drugs. — Chuck Palahniuk

Seventeen's not so young. A hundred years ago people got married when they were practically our age."
"Yeah, that was before electricity and the Internet. A hundred years ago eighteen-year-old guys were out there fighting wars with bayonets and holding a man's life in their hands! They lived a lot of life by the time they were our age. What do kids our age know about love and life? — Jenny Han

In short they felt that they should like to have the pleasure of looking at Lady Pole again, and so they told Sir Walter - rather than asked him - that he missed his wife. He replied that he did not. But this was not allowed to be possible; it was well known that newly married gentlemen were never happy apart from their wives; the briefest of absences could depress a new husband's spirits and interfere with his digestion. — Susanna Clarke

those who married and bore children, and those who worked and consequently were not really women at all. The — Ann Jones

It was more than just material prosperity. America in 1960 was a country where restraint and boundaries were the natural conditions in all arenas. People married younger and stayed married; even with those added twenty-eight million, there were fewer divorces in 1960 than there had been a decade earlier. People did not have children unless they were married - only 2.5 percent of children were born out of wedlock, though the number in black households was disturbingly high - some 20 percent. — Jeff Greenfield

When a Forsyte was engaged, married, or born, the Forsytes were present; when a Forsyte died - but no Forsyte had as yet died; they did not die; death being contrary to their principles, they took precautions against it, the instinctive precautions of highly vitalized persons who resent encroachments on their property. — John Galsworthy

Troy was a sweet, good man. We just were never destined to be married. We just didn't have the same values. But I'm not bitter. He taught me how to laugh. — Suzanne Pleshette

As they stood there together, Ekwefi's mind went back to the days when they were young. She had married Anene because OKonkwo was too poor then to marry. Two years after her marriage to Anene she could bear it no longer and she ran away to Okonkwo. It had been early in the morning. The moon was shining. She was going to the stream to fetch water. Okonkwo's house was on the way to the stream. She went in and knocked at his door and he came out. Even in those days he was not a man of many words. He just carried her into his bed and in the darkness began to feel around her waist for the loose end of her cloth. — Chinua Achebe

My parents were never really married, by which I mean they never bothered making their relationship official with any church. I'm not embarrassed by the fact. They considered themselves married and didn't see much point in announcing it to any government or God. I respect that. In truth, they seemed more content and faithful than many officially married couples I have seen since. — Patrick Rothfuss

We don't really want to get what we think that we want.
I am married to a wife and relationship with her are cold and I have a mistress. And all the time I dream oh my god if my wife were to disappear - I'm not a murderer but let us say- that it will open up a new life with the mistress.Then, for some reason, the wife goes away, you lose the mistress.
You thought this is all I want, when you have it there, you turn out it was a much more complex situation.
It was not to live with the mistress, but to keep her as a distance as on object of desire about which you dream.
This is not an excessive example, I claim this is how things function. We don't really want what we think we desire — Slavoj Zizek

To love was to be vulnerable, especially regarding children. One feared for their safety, their happiness, their good health. One felt guilty for their unhappiness or their failures. One was bothered by their dependence, and terrified by their courage. One forgot one's own mistakes, risks, high and absurd dreams and wanted only to protect them from hurt. Then they grew up, married, and too often became almost strangers. They could not imagine that you were also afraid, fallible, could still dream and fall in love. — Anne Perry

Maybe if I hadn't been so hell-bent on not becoming my parents, I could have saved Charlie. Maybe I would have been his girlfriend. Maybe we could have gotten married and been happy, regardless of who our parents were and what they did to each other. — A.S. King

What would she tell me, about the Commander, if she were here? Probably she'd disapprove. She disapproved of Luke, back then. Not of Luke but of the fact that he was married. She said I was poaching, on another woman's ground. I said Luke wasn't a fish or a piece of dirt either, he was a human being and could make his own decisions. She said I was rationalizing. I said I was in love. She said that was no excuse. Moira was always more logical than I am. I said she didn't have that problem herself anymore, since she'd decided to prefer women, and as far as I could see she had no scruples about stealing them or borrowing them when she felt like it. She said it was different, because the balance of power was equal between women so sex was an even-steven transaction. I said "even Steven" was a sexist phrase, if she was going to be like that, and anyway that argument was outdated. She said I had trivialized the issue and if I thought it was outdated I was living with my head in the sand. We — Margaret Atwood

An english baron wed to my daughter? I'll die first, I will." Johanna quit rubbing Claire's shoulder and stepped forward.
"A very rich baron," she blurted out. The laird frowned at Johanna with what she thought was indignation.
"Wealth is not an issue here," he muttered. "How rich?"
They were married an hour later. — Julie Garwood

She couldn't quite see herself in it. When they were done, I read the Shakespeare sonnet that begins "Fear no more the heat o' the Sun," partly because it was appropriate to the occasion and one of the most beautiful poems in the language, but also because I hoped it might hide from my loved ones the fact that I myself had nothing to say, that while part of me was here with them on this beloved shore, another part was wandering, as it had been for months, in a barren, uninhabited landscape not unlike the one in my dream. I realized I'd felt like this for a while. Though life had gone on since my mother's death - Kate had gotten married, I'd finally published another book and gone on tour with it - some sort of internal-pause button had been pushed, allowing another part of me, one I'd specifically kept sequestered to deal with my mother, to fall silent. Since her death, Barbara and I had gone through all her things and settled her affairs, but we'd barely spoken of her. — Richard Russo

ALEXIS
I have made some converts to the principle that men and women should be coupled in matrimony without distinction of rank. I have lectured on the subject at Mechanics' Institutes, and the mechanics were unanimous in favour of my views. I have preached in workhouses, beershops and Lunatic Asylums, and I have been received with enthusiasm. I have addressed navvies on the advantages that would accrue to them if they married wealthy ladies of rank, and not a navvy dissented!
ALINE
Noble fellows! And yet there are those who hold that the uneducated classes are not open to argument! And what do the countesses say?
ALEXIS
Why, at present, it can't be denied, the aristocracy hold aloof.
ALINE
Ah, the working man is the true Intelligence after all!
ALEXIS
He is a noble creature when he is quite sober. — W.S. Gilbert

When Renee and I talked about it years later, we agreed on one point: We were insane. Renee always said, "If any of our kids want to get married when they're twenty-five, we'll have to lock them in the attic." We were just kids, and everybody who came to the wedding party was guilty of shameful if not criminal negligence
look at the shiny pretty toaster, isn't it cute to see the babies playing with it in the bathtub? Jesus, people! — Rob Sheffield

And he got going from there to America. Worked his passage, I s'pose, like a lot more. And I heard he did well in America, too. Got married there. Had a family. But never came back. And you know why? 'Cause if he did, if he ever set foot in Ireland again, you know who'd be waiting for him, don't you?
That's right. The three of 'em. And their box. And the second time they'd make no mistake.
It is a much-overlooked fact that not all of the thousands who fled Ireland in former times did so to escape hunger, deprivation, and persecution. There were also those who went to escape the wrath of the Good People. Many stories illustrated this, the one here being typical. — Eddie Lenihan

Let us be very strange and well-bred:Let us be as strange as if we had been married a great while;And as well-bred as if we were not married at all. — William Congreve

By making no demands (for example, "You must give up your career"), by seeming not to interfere in crucial decisions (should she abort the child she had conceived by him before they were married?) he effectively placed the burden of all decisions on her. She was the one who had to choose - over and over again. Michael could just be himself. This is the free ride men so often enjoy in their marriages. — Carl Rollyson

Yeah, you got married, didn't you? But,
you only did it because you thought we were over - and we're not over. We'll never be over. If you think that little piece of metal on your finger can shield off your feelings for me, you're wrong. I wore one for five years and there wasn't a day that went by where I wasn't wishing it were you. — Tarryn Fisher

I am afraid of getting older. I am afraid of getting married. Spare me from cooking three meals a day - spare me from the relentless cage of routine and rote. I want to be free. ( ... ) I want, I think, to be omniscient ... I think I would like to call myself "The girl who wanted to be God." Yet if I were not in this body, where would I be - perhaps I am destined to be classified and qualified. But, oh, I cry out against it. I am I - I am powerful - but to what extent? I am I. — Sylvia Plath

What has started you on this?" I asked. "We were talking about the holidays."
"Los Angeles is not a safe place for a young woman alone. I feel it in my bones."
"That's your arthritis, Aunt Sadie. Do you want me to get a gun? I'd probably shoot myself in the foot."
"I'd rather you got married again."
"That might be worse than shooting myself in the foot. — Cynthia Lawrence

Junction nineteen! Una, she came off at Junction nineteen! You've added an hour to your journey before you even started. Come on, let's get you a drink. How's your love life, anyway?"
Oh GOD. Why can't married people understand that this is no longer a polite question to ask? We wouldn't rush up to THEM and roar, "How's your marriage going? Still having sex?" Everyone knows that dating in your thirties is not the happy-go-lucky free-for-it-all it was when you were twenty-two and that the honest answer is more likely to be, "Actually, last night my married lover appeared wearing suspenders and a darling little Angora crop-top, told me he was gay/a sex addict/a narcotic addict/a commitment phobic and beat me up with a dildo," than, "Super, thanks. — Helen Fielding

Funny how worried you are that Dani's not a Buchanan when you're not one yourself. If I remember my history correctly, you married into this family. You were a poor nobody. What? A hotel chambermaid?" Gloria stiffened. Penny allowed herself a slight smile. "Oh, yeah. I did my research on you years ago. I know all about your affair with Ian Buchanan and how when that ended, you married his son. Tell me, Gloria. Were you still banging Daddy when you walked down the aisle with the son?" "You slut," Gloria hissed. "You should know." "I'll destroy you." "You can try. I'm up to the fight. But before you waste your effort on that, let me share one thing with you. — Susan Mallery

When I started doing my act, I wasn't married and didn't have kids. I was probably 29 years old. Some people say that's not a kid, but when you're 50, and you look back to when you were 30, you were a kid. You look back on your 30s and think, "I was an idiot!" But I would just do things then I thought were funny. I couldn't have cared less who thought anything about it. — Larry The Cable Guy

NOT long ago, there lived in London a young married couple of Dalmatian dogs named Pongo and Missis Pongo. (Missis had added Pongo's name to her own on their marriage, but was still called Missis by most people.) They were lucky enough to own a young married couple of humans named Mr. and Mrs. Dearly, who were gentle, obedient, and unusually intelligent - almost canine at times. They understood quite a number of barks: the barks for "Out, please!" "In, please!" "Hurry up with my dinner!" and "What about a walk?" And even when they could not understand, they could often guess - if looked at soulfully or scratched by an eager paw. Like many other much-loved humans, they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realizing that their dogs owned them. Pongo and Missis found this touching and amusing and let their pets think it was true. — Dodie Smith

And the old ones were burly people, as strong as bears or wolverines. One of Thorn's stories told how an old one had married a bear by mistake, and neither of them had noticed; their daughter told them about it years later, not at all pleased with them. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Medicine labours to restore 'natural' structure or 'normal' function. But greed, egoism, self-deception,and self-pity are not abnormal in the same sense as astigmatism or a floating kidney. For who, in Heaven's name, would describe as natural or normal any man from whom these failings were wholly absent? 'Natural,' if you like, in a quite different sense; archnatural, unfallen. We have only seen one such Man. And he was not at all like the psychologist's picture of the integrated, balanced, adjusted, happily married, employed, popular citizen. You can't really be 'well adjusted' to your world if it says 'you havea devil' and ends by nailing you up naked to a stake of wood. — C.S. Lewis

After tidying the kitchen, Claire walked upstairs and found Tyler in the hallway, lost in thought as he rearranged his paintings hanging there, a series he called "Claire's World," which he'd painted when they first married. She wasn't actually in the paintings, he wasn't a portrait painter, but they were beautiful studies in light and color- leafy greens, black lines that looked like lettering, bright apple-red dots. If she stared at them long enough, sometimes she thought she could make out a figure, crouched among the greens. Claire wondered, not for the first time, what she did to deserve this man, her husband. — Sarah Addison Allen

When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. — William Shakespeare

There was a time when she did not remember my name or that we were married, but she still remembered that she loved me. — Gene Wolfe

Listen" Darkstalker said, "I could see the future, but not just any future- all the possible futures. Do you understand what that means? I could have guided the tribe along the best path, to safety and glory and power and everything else. At each crossroad, I would have known the right thing to do. I loved my tribe Moonwatcher. i would have been the best ruler they'd ever had. I know it; I saw the futures where I was king, benevolent and beloved, married to Clearsight with six little dragonets of our own. Those were possible. They could have happened, if anyone had faith in me. — Tui T. Sutherland

My mother, a nonpracticing Jew from Delaware, had married a non-practicing Protestant in California. Sometimes, certainly not always, Jew + Protestant = Unitarian, and that is what we were - 'Jewnitarians,' as I like to say. — Michelle Huneven

Even they would think you a monster were you to
orchestrate a divorce right after my confinement."
"How long do you recommend I wait, then?"
"A long time. I know what happens when a divorce is granted:
The woman never gets anything. And I will not be parted from my child."
"So you will contest the divorce?"
"To my last penny. And then I'll borrow from Fitz and Millie."
"So we'll be married 'til the end of time?"
"The sooner you accept it, the sooner we are all better off."
His ancestors would have appreciated her hauteur: a fit wife for a de Montfort. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must have enough rest."
He gazed at her retreating back. Foolish woman, did she not realize that he'd already accepted it from the moment he'd said "I do"? — Sherry Thomas

The old sailors who traveled Earth's seas were said to have loved the ocean. The great captains said they were married to the sea or called the sea their mistress. Modern sailors held no such fantasies about outer space. Space did not love or hate, it simply killed anything it touched. — Steven L. Kent

Okay," Cooper says agreeably. "But what if you and Nigel fall in love, and Nigel and I become BFFs, and then you guys get married, and Nigel wants me to be the best man, and you and I have to talk about the wedding plans?"
"That would never happen, because since Nigel would be so in love with me, he would have dumped you as a BFF as soon as we got engaged and/or told you you were not allowed to be best man at our wedding, per my wishes."
"Yes, but - "
"Wait a minute," I say. "Did you just say 'BFF'?"
"Yes," he says. He looks at me and shrugs. "I've been watching a lot of Disney Channel. — Lauren Barnholdt

Married?" I asked, being ineptly sneaky.
"Nope. Gay," Sam flatly stated, being honest and not sneaky at all. How can you not like a man like that?
I almost choked on a green bean. Before I could stop myself, the words were out of my mouth. "And I'm sure the gay world is happy as hell about it."
Jason & Sam — John Inman

SHE'D DUMPED HIM. That's all. It wasn't that bad. It shouldn't have been. It's not like they were married. It's not like she abandoned him at the altar, or made off with his best friend and their retirement savings.
People get dumped all the time. — Rainbow Rowell

Nations do not plunge at once into ruin - governments do not change suddenly - the causes which bring about the final blow, are scarcely perceptible in the beginning; but they increase in numbers, and in power; they press harder and harder upon the energies and virtue of a people; and the last steps only are alarmingly hurried and irregular. A republic without industry, economy, and integrity, is Samson shorn of his locks. A luxurious and idle republic! Look at the phrase! - The words were never made to be married together; every body sees it would be death to one of them. — Lydia Maria Francis Child

Just as I had formed a tolerable establishment my travels commenced, and on my return I find all to do over again; my former flock were all scattered; some married, not before it was needful. — George Gordon Byron

From "Not For Ourselves Alone:"
In Elizabeth Cady Stanton's time:
Women were barred by custom from the pulpit and professions
Those who spoke in public were thought indecent
Married women were prohibited from owning or inheriting property: in fact, wives were the property of their husbands, who were entitled by law to her wages and her body.
Women were prohibited from signing contracts
Women had no right to their children or even their clothing in a divorce
Women were not allowed to serve on juries and most were considered incompetent to testify.
Women were not allowed to VOTE. — Ken Burns

She went to the public school that the three youngest girls attended and in halting English told the teacher that the children must be encouraged to speak only English; they were not to use a German word or phrase ever. In that way, she protected them against their father. She grieved when her children had to leave school after the sixth grade and go out working. She grieved when they married no-account men. She wept when they gave birth to daughters, knowing that to be born a woman meant a life of humble hardship. Each — Betty Smith

(Did you love your wife) I convinced myself I did when I married. I willed myself into the appropriate feelings without knowing what the appropriate feelings were. I endowed her with qualities she did not have and then despised her for not having them. Afterwards I might have learned to love her if I had thought more of her needs and less of my own. — P.D. James

The Salimbeni genes," I observed, rolling my eyes, "are yet again rearing their ugly head. Let me guess, if we were married, you would chain me in the dungeon every time you left the house?"
He considered it, but not for long. "I wouldn't have to. Once you get to know me, you will never want anyone else. And" - he finally put down the teaspoon - "you will forget everyone you knew before. — Anne Fortier

Oh, my love," Erienne breathed as he pressed his lips to her brow, "I was afraid you would come, and yet I hoped you would."
Light kisses rained upon her cheek and brow as he held her close, savoring the nearness of her while he could. "I would have come sooner had I known where they had taken you. I had not expected this of your father, but he will answer. I promise you that."
Erienne shook her head and replied in the same muted tone. "He is not my real father."
Christopher held her away, looking down at her wonderingly. "What is this?"
"My mother married an Irish rebel and got with child before he was hanged. Avery married her, knowing the facts, but he never told her that it was he who had given the final orders to hang my father."
Christopher gently brushed a tumbled curl from off her cheek. "I knew you were too beautiful to be kin to him."

-Erienne & Christopher — Kathleen E. Woodiwiss