The only way a woman can ever reform her husband is by boring him
so completely that he loses read more

The only way a woman can ever reform her husband is by boring him
so completely that he loses all possible interest in life.

Those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the
constancy of its vows are the very people read more

Those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the
constancy of its vows are the very people who declare that if the
chain were broken and the prisoners were left free to choose, the
whole social fabric would fly asunder. You can't have the
argument both ways. If the prisoner is happy, why lock him in?
If he is not, why pretend that he is?

A husband is what is left of a lover, after the nerve has been extracted.

A husband is what is left of a lover, after the nerve has been extracted.

Marriage is a bribe to make the housekeeper think she's a householder.

Marriage is a bribe to make the housekeeper think she's a householder.

She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook.

She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook.

A great poet has seldom sung of lawfully wedded happiness, but of free and secret love; and in this respect, read more

A great poet has seldom sung of lawfully wedded happiness, but of free and secret love; and in this respect, too the time is coming when there will no longer be one standard of morality for poetry and another for life. To anyone tender of conscience, the ties formed by a free connection are stronger than the legal ones.

Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier read more

Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful molder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State- and church-begotten weed, marriage?

People who love only once in their lives are. . . shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their read more

People who love only once in their lives are. . . shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.

Marriage is a lottery, but you can't tear up your ticket if you lose.

Marriage is a lottery, but you can't tear up your ticket if you lose.