"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
— Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

"I'm not a witch, I'm your wife! But after what you just said, I'm not sure I want to be that anymore!"
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

"You know, some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it's your last. Bullshit. Life is long. You're probably not gonna get hit by a bus. And you're gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years."
— Chris Rock

"[T]he best thing a girl can be is a good wife and mother. It is a girl's highest calling. I hope I am ready."
— Nancy E. Turner (These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 : A Novel)

"We are walking down the street holding hands. There is a playground at the end of the block, and I run to the swings and I climb on and Henry takes the one next to me facing the opposite direction. And we swing higher and higher passing each other, sometimes in synch and sometimes streaming past each other so fast that it seems we are going to collide. And we laugh and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost or dead or far away. Right now we are here and nothing can mar our perfection or steal the joy of this perfect moment."
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"Today I married myself and I became my own wife."
— Johnette Napolitano, Concrete Blonde

"I told my wife the truth. I told her I was seeing a psychiatrist. Then she told me the truth: that she was seeing a psychiatrist, two plumbers, and a bartender."
— Rodney Dangerfield

""Listen to me, Amin," I said slowly. "Listen to me very carefully. Nothing is the same. Nothing will ever be the same again. There lives on this earth a woman who can be my friend and my lover. Do you understand that? Do you understand what a marvelous thing that is?"

"A friend is a friend," Uthman interrupted, "and a woman is a woman. You can't have them in one person. The whole world knows that."

"If that's what the whole world knows, ...then the whole world is wrong. I believed the whole world, and I lost her.""
— Barbara Cohen (Seven Daughters and Seven Sons)

"“Maybe I’m dreaming you. Maybe you’re dreaming me; maybe we only exist in each other’s dreams and every morning when we wake up we forget all about each other.”"
— Audrey Niffenegger

"I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest -- blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine."
— Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)

"Was that me? Yes it was. Was that him? No it wasn't..
Just a trick of the woods!
Just a moment,
One peculiar passing moment.
Must it all be either less or more,
Either plain or grand?
Is it always 'or'?
Is it never 'and'?
That's what woods are for:
For those moments in the woods...
Oh, if life were made of moments,
Even now and then a bad one--!
But if life were only moments,
Then you'd never know you had one.
First a witch, then a child, then a Prince, then a moment--
Who can live in the woods?
And to get what you wish, only just for a moment--
These are dangerous woods..
Let the moment go..
Don't forget it for a moment, though.
Just remembering you had an 'and,' when you're back to 'or,'
Makes the 'or' mean more than is did before.
Now I understand--
And it's time to leave the woods."
— Stephen Sondheim (Into the Woods)

"one of the best and the most painful things about time traveling has been the opportunity to see my mother alive."
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

""Then don't. I can't help you. They say that women dream of danger to those in their care and men of danger to themselves. But I don't dream at all. You say you can't? Then don't do it. That's all. Because I am done with my own whorish heat and I have been for a long time. You talk about taking a stand but there is no stand to take. My heart was ripped out of me the night he was born so don't ask for sorrow now. There is none. Maybe you'll be good at this. I doubt it, but who knows. The one thing I can tell you is that you won't survive for yourself. I know because I would have never have come this far. A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and sheild it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart.""
— Cormac McCarthy (The Road)

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters."
— Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

"When a woman thinks her husband is a fool, her marriage is over. They may part in one year or ten; they may live together until death. But if she thinks he is a fool, she will not love him again.
"
— Philippa Gregory - The Other Queen

"A woman has to change her nature if she is to be a wife. She has to learn to curb her tongue, to suppress her desires, to moderate her thoughts and to spend her days putting another first. She has to put him first even when she longs to serve herself or her children. She has to put him first even if she longs to judge for herself. She has to put him first even when she knows best. To be a good wife is to be a woman with a will of iron that you yourself have forged into a bridle to curb your own abilities. To be a good wife is to enslave yourself to a lesser person. To be a good wife is to amputate your own power as surely as the parents of beggars hack off their children's feet for the greater benefit of the family. "
— Philippa Gregory - The Other Queen

"I think about my mother singing after lunch on a Summer afternoon, twirling in blue dress across the floor of her dressing room"
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"I sit quietly and think about my mom. It's funny how memory erodes, If all I had to work from were my childhood memories, my knowledge of my mother would be faded and soft, with a few sharp memories standing out."
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"“Maybe I’m dreaming you. Maybe you’re dreaming me; maybe we only exist in each other’s dreams and every morning when we wake up we forget all about each other.”"
— Audrey Niffenegger

"A woman has to change her nature if she is to be a wife. She has to learn to curb her tongue, to suppress her desires, to moderate her thoughts and to spend her days putting another first. She has to put him first even when she longs to serve herself or her children. She has to put him first even if she longs to judge for herself. She has to put him first even when she knows best. To be a good wife is to be a woman with a will of iron that you yourself have forged into a bridle to curb your own abilities. To be a good wife is to enslave yourself to a lesser person. To be a good wife is to amputate your own power as surely as the parents of beggars hack off their children's feet for the greater benefit of the family. "
— P