30 Lessons for Living Quotes

“If you are entering into a permanent relationship based on the intention of change, you are on the wrong track.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“It’s my responsibility to be as happy as I can, right here, today.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“MY ADVICE IS NOT putting off too long to do something, because there certainly are things to do at certain times in your life that you can’t do at others. There are no wheelchair ramps to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, so if you want to get down there, you have to go when you’ve still got two little feet.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Here’s the “refrigerator list” of lessons for successful married life: 1. Marry someone a lot like you. Similarity in core values and background is the key to a happy marriage. And forget about changing someone after marriage. 2. Friendship is as important as romantic love. Heart-thumping passion has to undergo a metamorphosis in lifelong relationships. Marry someone for whom you feel deep friendship as well as love. 3. Don’t keep score. Don’t take the attitude that marriage must always be a fifty-fifty proposition; you can’t get out exactly what you put in. The key to success is having both partners try to give more than they get out of the relationship. 4. Talk to each other. Marriage to the strong, silent type can be deadly to a relationship. Long-term married partners are talkers (at least to one another, and about things that count). 5. Don’t just commit to your partner—commit to marriage itself. Make a commitment to the idea of marriage and take it seriously. There are enormous benefits to seeing the marriage as bigger than the immediate needs of each partner.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“You’ve really got to listen and let them have their say. When they’re done, ask, “What would you want?” or “What do you think would be the right thing to do?” When I was in my twenties, I had all the answers. Now that I’m in my eighties, I’m not so sure my answers are always right.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Tip 4: Let your partner have his or her say.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Tip 3: Watch out for teasing.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Antoinette Watkins found that writing helped defuse conflicts and increased her ability to discuss them. WHEN I BECAME TERRIBLY upset, I would sit down and write long letters to my husband, put them aside, read them the next day—and then throw them away. But it was a good idea to write it out. I think the big thing is to vent these things out of yourself, and you can do that in many ways. I found that writing helped.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Tip 2: Find a way to blow off steam, and then engage with your partner.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Tip 1: If you are having trouble discussing something, get out of the house.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“When you wake up in the morning, think, “What can I do to make her day or his day just a little happier?”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“The only way you can make a marriage work is to have both parties give 100 percent all the time.” It began to make sense: you can’t be calculating 50 percent in, 50 percent back. The attitude has to be one of giving freely. And if you start keeping score, you are already in trouble.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“In the experts’ view, you should marry your friend and, if possible, your best friend. Quite literally, they suggest you consider what you would like in a lifelong friend and look for that in a potential spouse. As a relationship is moving into a serious phase, questions couples can and should discuss are: If we weren’t in love, would be friends? And if we, as most couples do, downshift to something other than heart-thumping passion, what is there that will keep us together? (Hint: the answer should not be kids.) The answer is friendship, and if you don’t have it, don’t get married—it’s that simple.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Patty Banas, eighty, is one of the experts who made a go of a first marriage when young, divorced, and then “got it right” in her very happy second marriage. She too had one straightforward recommendation: BE SURE THAT YOU’RE really good friends. That is the most important thing. All the romance and the bells and the whistles are all very nice, but it doesn’t last. Be sure that you’re very good friends.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“What the experts suggest is that you look for the qualities of a friend—the capacity to comfortably “hang out”—in the person you choose to marry. Or as one of the experts told me: “Think back to the playground when you were a kid. Your spouse should be that kid you wanted most to play with!”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“What’s the secret to a long, happy marriage?” was essentially, “I married my best friend.” Similarly, from those whose marriages did not succeed, I often heard, “Well, we were good at love, but we never learned how to be friends.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“According to the experts, in the face of objective differences (such as race or economic background), shared values and outlook on life will go a long way to promote both the quality and stability of a marriage.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“finding someone who is similar in upbringing, general orientation, and values is the single most important component of a long and satisfying marriage.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“The research findings are quite clear: marriages that are homogamous in terms of economic background, religion, and closeness in age are the most stable and tend to be happier.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“And these researchers, in time-honored social-scientific fashion, substitute for “similarity” a more specialized term: “homogamy.” Homogamous marriages involve similar partners, whereas heterogamous marriages involve couples who differ in important characteristics. (Feel free to drop these terms at cocktail parties and amaze your friends.)”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“John Fordham, eighty-three, has been married to his wife, Elaine, for thirty-three years. When asked what the secret to a long, happy marriage was, he responded: “Well, I think that one should know oneself. And then I suppose there’s a semiconscious table of attitudes and values that one uses to find kindred spirits.” He explained that you should begin by taking an inventory of what you value and what you believe in. Only then can you understand what would make another person compatible.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“AND YOU HAVE TO have, I think, a similar sense of humor. That was a very important part of our life together. In fact, just two weeks before he died, we were talking one night, and he said something and I just dissolved in laughter, and he looked at me so self-satisfied and said, “I can still make you laugh after all these years!” And he could.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“POLITICAL VALUES, FEELINGS ABOUT not living in an ostentatious way, about commitment to other people, and our own commitments. We both had different specific commitments, but strong commitments in feeling that we owed something back, that our lives were going pretty well and we owed something back, not only of resources, but of time. We both loved to travel, and we had a sense of adventure. We liked the same people, and I think that’s important. Very seldom did we disagree about friends.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“IT SOUNDS SIMPLE, BUT you have to like each other. Be friends, try to get past the initial heaving and panting and make sure there’s a real friendship underneath that. I don’t think you have to have identical interests, but you’ve got to have shared values. That is quite important. That was critical. Yeah, I think values are probably the most important thing.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“if you’re a free spender, marry somebody who understands that. If you’re frugal, you need to marry somebody who understands that, because money is one of the stumbling blocks in marriages. And fortunately we have the same values on most things.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Based on their long experiences both in and out of love relationships, their first lesson is this: you are much more likely to have a satisfying marriage for a lifetime when you and your mate are fundamentally similar.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“The noted family historian Stephanie Coontz sums up the research concisely: “Today married people in Western Europe and North America are generally happier, healthier, and better protected against economic setbacks and psychological depression than people in any other living arrangement.” Married people enjoy higher incomes and greater emotional support. Perhaps the most compelling sign that there is something to marriage is the proportion of divorced people who remarry (around 75 percent, and most of those within four years after the divorce)—a phenomenon that has sardonically been labeled “the triumph of hope over experience.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Americans seek advice with an appetite that seems to be insatiable. We watch televised “experts” in the hope of finding solutions to interpersonal problems, financial woes, and sexual dysfunction. We read advice columns and go to seminars. We consult selfimprovement websites. And we buy books. There are more than thirty thousand self-help titles in print in the United States today, and it’s estimated that Americans will spend close to one billion dollars buying them this year.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“You are not responsible for all the things that happen to you, but you are completely in control of your attitude and your reactions to them. If you feel annoyance, fear, or disappointment, these feelings are cause by you and must be dug out like a weed. Study where they came from, accept them, and then let them go. If you let outside pressures determine how you feel and what you do, you have just abdicated your job as CEO of your own life.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“THERE WILL ALWAYS BE many who are richer or more distinguished than I am, so if my purpose in working is to attain these extrinsic rewards, I will be disappointed, for I will always compare myself to those whose attainments are greater. But if I work principally for the pleasure or the fulfillment it gives me, my success is assured. There are few blessings greater than finding such work and keeping it.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans