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Breaking Up Quotes

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Breaking Up Quotes

“I didn't plan it," she said. "I hoped that we would both just know when it was time... That we'd have one of those moments. Like in the movies, foreign movies, when something small happens, something almost imperceptible, and it changes everything. Like there's a man and a woman having breakfast... and the man reaches for the jam, and the woman says, "I thought you didn't like jam," and the man says, "I didn't. Once." "Or maybe it isn’t even obvious. Maybe he reaches for the jam, and she just looks at him like she doesn't know him anymore. Like, in the moment he reached for that jar, she couldn't recognize him. "After breakfast, he'll go for a walk, and she'll go to their room and pack a slim brown suitcase. She'll stop on the sidewalk and wonder whether she should say good-bye, whether she should leave a note. But she won't. She'll just get into the taxi and go. "He knows as soon as he turns onto their walk that she's gone. But he doesn't turn back. He doesn't regret a single day they spent together, including this one. Maybe he finds one of her ribbons on the stairs...”

RelationshipForeignersBreaking Up
Book:Attachments
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“I've always thought of being in love as being willing to do anything for the other person--starve to buy them bread and not mind living in Siberia with them--and I've always thought that every minute away from them would be hell--so looking at it that way, I guess I'm not in love with you. [Letter to suitor, R. Beverley Corbin, Jr. 20 January 1947]”

LoveBeing In LoveBreaking UpCourtingSuitorsPenpalsJackie KennedyDear John Letter
Author:Jackie Kennedy Onassis
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“So many events and moments that seemed insignificant add up. I remember how for the last Valentine´s Day, N gave flowers but no card. In restaurants, he looked off into the middle distance while my hand would creep across the table to hold his. He would always let go first. I realize I can´t remember his last spontaneous gesture of affection.”

RelationshipsMarriageDivorceDeceptionCheatingInfidelityBreaking Up
Book:Split: A Memoir of Divorce
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“Someday I will have revenge. I know in advance to keep this to myself, and everyone will be happier. I do understand that I am expected to forgive N and his girlfriend in a timely fashion, and move on to a life of vegetarian cooking and difficult yoga positions and self-realization, and make this so much easier and more pleasant for all concerned.”

RelationshipsMarriageDivorceDeceptionCheatingInfidelityBreaking Up
Book:Split: A Memoir of Divorce
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“I am replete with stamina in finding out every single fact I can about this whole affair. Yet, I think, do I want to pull that thread? Do I want to unleash the truth, unravel deceit, and kill reality as I´ve known it? It is irreparable, if I do, from the moment we met until now. It is long. If I discover too much that is false about what I thought my past was, Time will be skewed even further. I already have a poor connection with the present. Example: I have no sense of what day it is. It´s better.”

RelationshipsMarriageDivorceDeceptionCheatingInfidelityBreaking Up
Book:Split: A Memoir of Divorce
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“How could you do that to me?" I repeat. I don´t have to itemize. He knows what I speak of. Eventually N produces three answers, in this order: 1. "Because I am a complete rotter." I silently agree, but it´s a cop-out: I have maggots, therefore I am dead. 2. "I was stressed at work and unhappy and we were always fighting...and you know I was just crazy..." I cut him off, saying, "You don´t get to be crazy. You did exactly what you chose to do." Which is true, he did. It is what he has always done. He therefore seems slightly puzzled at the need for further diagnosis, which may explain his third response: 3. "I don´t know." This, I feel instinctively, is the correct answer. How can I stay angry with him for being what he is? I was, after all, his wife, and I chose him. No coincidences, that´s what Freud said. None. Ever. I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and walk toward the truck, saying to his general direction, "Fine. At least now I know: You don´t know." I stop and turn around and fire one more question: a bullet demanding attention in the moment it enters the skin and spreads outward, an important bullet that must be acknowledged. "What did you feel?" After a lengthy pause, he answers. "I felt nothing." And that, I realize too late, was not the whole truth, but was a valid part of the truth. Oh, and welcome to the Serengeti. That too.”

RelationshipsMarriageDivorceDeceptionCheatingInfidelityBreaking Up
Book:Split: A Memoir of Divorce
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“I´m just not sending out the right vibe lately. Perhaps the fact that I wear stained sweatpants and free T-shirts is holding me back. I just can´t seem to get back into the intelligent-slut-for-hire outfits that lure men; even shoes with laces evade me. Plus my hair is Fran Lebowitz-esque. I think my eyes are getting closer together. I don´t know.”

RelationshipsMarriageDivorceDeceptionCheatingInfidelityBreaking Up
Book:Split: A Memoir of Divorce
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“You get what you give," we will tell his sorry, selfish ass." The Betty Lady has spoken. I detect a Bronx accent. "But," I demur, "it will make the other woman say, ´See? She IS a jealous and paranoid and pushy wife.´" The Betty Lady rips open a cell phone statement with a nail file and, without looking up at me, says, "Let me tell you something, honey. In my experience? The only thing they care about is what they see in the mirror each morning and WINNING...or their perception of winning.”

RelationshipsMarriageDivorceDeceptionCheatingInfidelityBreaking Up
Book:Split: A Memoir of Divorce
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“It seemed funny that one day I would go to bed in her arms and the next not feel anything, like a switch had gone off. But no, that wasn’t honest either. This had been building for a long time. Our silences were getting longer. Our arguments more frequent. How do you stay with someone when there are no dreams to build? No purpose to accomplish? No meaning? No meaning —that was the monster that drove us away from one another in the end. Always.”

LoveRelationshipsExistenceDreamsMeaningExistentialismBreaking Up
Book:A Short Stay in Hell
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“This does not escape my notice, it is a context. I resent the fact of a context; my social status has shifted and no one is going to acknowldege it, that´s certain. I´m expected to be Brave and Rise Above. I dress for the role; I must look far better now that I did when I was married. I must look pulled together into a nice tight Hermès knot of self-containment. I don´t make the rules; I just do my best to follow them.”

RelationshipsMarriageDivorceDeceptionCheatingInfidelityBreaking Up
Book:Split: A Memoir of Divorce
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“There is that, and there is also the Irreconcilable Differences line. It seems so catchall, so vague. You could say that about anyone, any man and woman at all. Jesus and Mary Magdalene: "Irreconcilable Differences." JFK and Jackie, anyone at all. It´s built into the man-woman thing. What kind of paltry reason is that? "Insanity" is another box to be checked on the divorce petition, the only alternative to "Irreconcilable Differences." I would like to check it.”

RelationshipsMarriageDivorceDeceptionCheatingInfidelityBreaking Up
Book:Split: A Memoir of Divorce
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“To keep myself from harming or calling N and to stave off the rage and despair, I focus on my extraordinary son, drink midrange Chardonnay every night after he is asleep, and make a barrage of late-night mail-order retail purchases placed from the couch. The couch has officially become my second battle station. I am angry and I have credit And I´m all blackened inside; I should wear a pointy witch hat around Larkspur as I go to the bank and drop A off at day care. It would be more honest.”

RelationshipsMarriageDivorceDeceptionCheatingInfidelityBreaking Up
Book:Split: A Memoir of Divorce
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“Whether she was engaged, married or single, nothing could or ever would come of the weakness he was forced to acknowledge that he had developed. He would re-establish the professional distance that had somehow ebbed away with her drunken confessions and the camaraderie of their trip up north, and temporarily shelve his half-acknowledged plan to end the relationship with Elin. It felt safer just now to have another woman within reach, and a beautiful one at that, whose enthusiasm and expertise in bed ought surely to compensate for an undeniable incompatibility outside it. He fell to wondering how long Robin would continue working for him after she became Mrs. Cunliffe. Matthew would surely use every ounce of his husbandly influence to pry her away from a profession as dangerous as it was poorly paid. Well, that was her lookout: her bed, and she could lie in it. Except that once you had broken up, it was much easier to do so again. He ought to know. How many times had he and Charlotte split? How many times had they tried to reassemble the wreckage? There had been more cracks than substance by the end: they had lived in a spider's web of fault lines, held together by hope, pain, and delusion. Robin and Matthew had just two months to go before the wedding. There was still time.”

Breaking UpForbidden LoveLove TriangleCormoran StrikeRobert GalbraithRobin EllacottCormoran And RobinCareer Of Evil
Book:Career of Evil
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“Three-Ring Circus by Stewart Stafford First love's doubtless light, Blinded with scorching might, What little a cloudy eye allows, Passion's seal on supple brows. Resplendent in our united phase. Love's incandesence in full blaze, No one else existed, gazes locked, Past emptiness, amnesia-blocked. Now we pass on a muted, wintry street, Joyless crime, sounds of splashing feet, Pained awareness, eyes to the ground, Mourners part bereft of sorrow's sound. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

LoveRelationshipsFirst LoveBreaking UpBreak UpsSplitting UpUrban PoetryDark RomanticismMetaphysical PoetryModern Noir
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“The Ludicrous Pragmatic by Stewart Stafford Love is anaesthesia, Of the human condition, Honeyed, layman's nostrum, healing body and mind. An auction won unbidden, Self-created, human-sustained, Unlike energy, destructible, morphing into vicious hatred. Convalescing in a void, baby steps towards others, a sentient river to the sea, Until love's exhumed again. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”

LoveFalling In LoveLove PoemLove PoemsLove PoetryLove And HateBreaking UpBreak UpsNew LoveRekindle The Flame
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“to do list (after the breakup) 1. take refuge in your bed 2. cry. till the tears stop (this will take a few days). 3. don’t listen to slow songs. 4. delete their number from your phone even though it is memorized on your fingertips. 5. don’t look at old photos. 6. find the closest ice cream shop and treat yourself to two scoops of mint chocolate chip. the mint will calm your heart. you deserve the chocolate. 7. buy new bed sheets. 8. collect all the gifts, t-shirts, and everything with their smell on it and drop it off at a donation center. 9. plan a trip. 10. perfect the art of smiling and nodding when someone brings their name up in conversation. 11. start a new project. 12. whatever you do. do not call. 13. do not beg for what does not want to stay. 14. stop crying at some point. 15. allow yourself to feel foolish for believing you could’ve built the rest of your life in someone else’s stomach. 16. breathe.”

PoetryRelationshipsDepressionMental HealthBreaking UpMilk And HoneyRupi Kaur
Book:Milk and honey
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