“It's not easy, pairing yourself off with someone forever. It's an admirable thing, and I'm glad you're both doing it, but, boy-oh-girl-oh, there will be days you wish you'd never done it. And those will be the good times, when it's only days of regret and not months.”
Source: Gone Girl
“...We must say to ourselves something like this: 'Well, when Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn't think "I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me." No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, he STAYED. He said, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely. That is why I am going to love my spouse.' Speak to your heart like that, and then fulfill the promises you made on your wedding day.”
Source: The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God
“What do you mean, 'Angle of Repose?' she asked me when I dreamed we were talking about Grandmother's life, and I said it was the angle at which a man or woman finally lies down. I suppose it is; and yet ... I thought when I began, and still think, that there was another angle in all those years when she was growing old and older and very old, and Grandfather was matching her year for year, a separate line that did not intersect with hers. They were vertical people, they lived by pride, and it is only by the ocular illusion of perspective that they can be said to have met. But he had not been dead two months when she lay down and died too, and that may indicate that at that absolute vanishing point they did intersect. They had intersected for years, for more than he especially would ever admit.”
Source: Angle of Repose
“If you're as detached as that, why does the obsolete institution of marriage survive with you?"
Oh, it still has its uses. One couldn't be divorced without it.”
Source: The Custom of the Country
“…I bet Echo that she couldn't repeat the following line ten times fast:
Cupid's Academy counts kissing cousins as completed conquests cause his classes cunningly conspire unconscious couples to copulate and canoodle copiously.”
Source: Cupid's Academy: Argus' Big Fat Greek Wedding Ring
“Didn't Frankenstein get married?"
"Did he?" said Eggy. "I don't know. I never met him. Harrow man, I expect.”
Source: Laughing Gas
“I am the most miserable person who ever lived," he said... "You are young, and in love," said Primus. "Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived.”
Source: Stardust
“...And no prenup. Prenups are for people who plan on getting a divorce. I have so much, Bernie. But I've never had anyone to share it with. From now on, what's mine is yours”
Source: Black Ties and Lullabies
“When Stephen talked about stalking chamois his whole expression changed. The features became more aquiline, the nose sharpened, the chin narrowed, and his eyes-steel blue - somehow took on the cold brilliance of a northern sky. I am being very frank about my husband. He attracted me at those times, and he repelled me too. This man, I told myself when I first met him, is a perfectionist. And he has no compassion. Gratified like all women who find themselves sought after and desired - a mutual love for Sibelius had been our common ground at our first encounter - after a few weeks in his company I shut my eyes to further judgment, because being with him gave me pleasure. It flattered my self-esteem. The perfectionist, admired by other women, now sought me. Marriage was in every sense a coup. It was only afterwards that I knew myself deceived. ("The Chamois")”
Source: Echoes from the Macabre: Selected Stories
“We don't persuade our neighbors by mimicking their angry power-protests. We persuade them by holding fast to the gospel, by explaining our increasingly odd view of marriage, and by serving the world and our neighbors around us, as our Lord does, with a towel and a foot-bucket.”
Source: Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches