I began to see what marriage is for. It's to keep people away from each other. Sometimes I think that two people who love each other can be saved from madness only by the things that come between them—children, duties, visits, bores, relations: the things that protect married people from each other.

About Edith Wharton

Edith Newbold Wharton (; née Jones; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American writer and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of upper-class New York society to portray, realistically, the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win...

More quotations from Edith Wharton

True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.

—Edith Wharton

vision originality

If only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.

—Edith Wharton

trying

Maybe that's just what happens; you start out wanting to change the world through language, and end up thinking it's enough to tell a few jokes.

—Edith Wharton

writing

The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.

—Edith Wharton

money

I wonder, among all the tangles of this mortal coil, which one contains tighter knots to undo, and consequently suggests more tugging, and pain, and diversified elements of misery, than the marriage tie.

—Edith Wharton

pain marriage misery

More quotations tagged with “marriage”

I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.

—Rita Rudner

love annoyance eternity marriage

This had always frightened her about marriage: how satisfied married people seemed, how unable they were to ask for more. She couldn't imagine feeling satisfied.

—Brit Bennett in The Mothers

fear satisfaction marriage

I believe in love. I believe in hard times and love winning. I believe marriage is hard. I believe people make mistakes. I believe people can want two things at once. I believe people are selfish and generous at the same time. I believe very few people want to hurt others. I believe that you can be surprised by life. I believe in happy endings.

—Isabel Gillies in Happens Every Day

love mistakes hurt marriage generosity selfishness

The fact is, being married to your job for some portion or all of your life, even if it does in some way inhibit romantic prospects, is not necessarily a terrible fate, provided that you are lucky enough to enjoy your work, or the money you earn at it, or the respect it garners you, or the people you do it with.

—Rebecca Traister in All the Single Ladies

money work romance marriage fate

The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.

—Voltaire

marriage surprise

History

3 Aug 2013 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

I began to see what marriage is for. It's to keep people away from each other. Sometimes I think that two people who love each other can be saved from madness only by the things that come between them — children, duties, visits, bores, relations: the things that protect married people from each other.