During his stint as host of a show called You Bet Your Life, Groucho Marx interviewed many participants. On one occasion he interviewed a Mrs. Story, who had given birth to twenty-two children. "I love my husband," Mrs. Story said enthusiastically. "I like my cigar, too," said Groucho, "but I take it out once in a while.
—Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes
When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.
—Woody Allen
There is so little difference between husbands you might as well keep the first.
—Adela Rogers St. Johns
In our society, we've become myopic and obsessive about one particular kind of love: dyadic love, which takes the form of romance, sex, marriage. As a result we end up asking all the wrong questions. Books about relationships talk about how to "get" the love you need, how to "keep" love, and so on. But the right question to ask is "How do I become a more loving human being?
—Sam Keen
Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
—Voltaire
My mother buried three husbands, and two of them were just napping.
—Rita Rudner
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
—Terry Pratchett
By all means marry: if you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
—Socrates
Wasn't marriage, like life, unstimulating and unprofitable and somewhat empty when too well-ordered and protected and guarded. Wasn't it finer, more splendid, more nourishing when it was, like life itself, a mixture of the sordid and the magnificent; of mud and stars; of earth and flowers; of love and hate and laughter and tears and ugliness and beauty and hurt.
—Edna Ferber
O month when they who love must love and wed.
—Helen Hunt Jackson
Most couples get married because it's time, not because they're in love. They might have money issues, parental pressure, or they're simply tired of being alone—so they pick Mr. Good Enough and tie the knot.
—H.M. Ward in The Wedding Contract
The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.
—Henny Youngman
The conception of two people living together for twenty-five years without having a cross word suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.
—Alan Patrick Herbert
All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest—never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principle of equal partnership.
—Ann Landers