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Quote by Gill Hornby

“Oh, marriage!' Jane retorted. 'Marriage! Always the excuse for all failures of character. One does so long for it to bring some improvements, but more often it appears the root cause of all poor behaviour.”

Quote by Gill Hornby

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Miss Austen

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Gill Hornby

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“How do you manage to have such a long marriage?' she asked. 'You fight for it,' Estelle replied honestly. Julia didn't seem to like that quite as much. 'That doesn't sound very romantic.' Estelle grinned knowingly. 'You have to listen to each other all the time. But not all the time. If you listen to each other all the time, there's a risk that you can't forgive each other afterward.”

“We think we know the ones we love. Our husbands, our wives. We know them - we are them, sometimes; when separated at a party we find ourselves voicing their opinions, their taste in food or books, telling an anecdote that never happened to us but happened to them. We watch their tics of conversation, of driving and dressing, how they touch a sugar cube to their coffee and stare as it turns white to brown, then drop it, satisfied, into the cup. I watched my own husband do that every morning; I was a vigilant wife. We think we know them. We think we love them. But what we love turns out to be a poor translation, a translation we ourselves have made, from a language we barely know. We try to get past it to the original, but we never can. We have seen it all. But what have we really understood?”

“When you see Sibyl Vane you will feel that the man who could wrong her would be a beast, a beast without a heart. I cannot understand how any one can wish to shame the thing he loves. I love Sibyl Vane. I want to place her on a pedestal of gold, and to see the world worship the woman who is mine. What is marriage? An irrevocable vow. You mock at it for that. Ah! don't mock. It is an irrevocable vow that I want to take. Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good. When I am with her, I regret all that you have taught me. I become different from what you have known me to be. I am changed, and the mere touch of Sibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories.”