SO GOOD QUOTES

Author: SO GOOD QUOTES

  • But loneliness in marriage can be bitter. Caroline, now 47 and a successful writer, was married for 12 years to a man who, though never cruel, felt increasingly absent. “He was very gregarious,” she says, “always the life and soul of the party, but really very insecure. When we were alone, he would disappear into himself. He didn’t really either talk or listen. There was nothing I could put my finger on, but in a way that was the trouble: there was nothing.”

    In solitude what happiness?

  • The second time, when I was twenty-three, I was thinking of getting married. It never occurred to me that I should do anything else.

I met a doctor who spoke to me of the Church and of the beauty of serving her with one’s whole being, while remaining in the world. I do not know what happened at that time nor how it happened; the fact is that I was praying in an empty church where I had gone to escape from my state of inner confusion. I heard the same voice the I had heard during my confession with the old missionary. “Marriage is not for you. You will offer your life to me. I shall be your Lover for ever.”

    Letters from the Desert 
    Carlo Carretto

  • If you

    were married to yourself

    could you stay with yourself? 

    My house

    would be frightening and wild. 

    —Yrsa Daley-Ward’s book of poems, Bone

  • As I glanced around, the sight of these families appeared picture-perfect. I couldn’t help but imagine their seemingly flawless marriages and unwavering commitment to family life, not to mention resoluteness in their identity. Meanwhile, my marriage seemed to echo death’s knell, while I desired to belong to the same genetic bottleneck as these Anglo-Ashkos.

    I am inbred, but not in the way I’d like.

    I attempted to shake off my thoughts by pouring myself a flute of prosecco. As I sipped, I noticed two distinguished middle-aged men, their knit kippot perched atop their heads, seated at a nearby table overlooking the sea. They glanced in my direction, prompting one of them, the more attractive of the pair, to shyly avert his gaze and acknowledge his spouse—a well-dressed woman in a modest floral dress, Golden Goose sneakers, and an expensive sheitel—who had just arrived with an infant in her pram.

    I wandered off, pondering whether couples like them ever desired more from their marriage.

    Bimbo Ubermensch
    ZOGGING OUT

  • “but he never considered marrying her, or even having a civil partnership: the mark left by his parents’ divorce was to remain indelible.”

    The Map and the Territory
    Michel Houellebecq

  • But even I, being the person I unfortunately am, had to say that without her I could be happier in my unhappiness than with her – she had touched me deeply, and I would so much, ever so much, have done everything.” 24 August, 1849

    Kierkegaard broke off the engagement believing it would be torturous for Olsen to be his companion because there was “something spectral about me, something no one can endure who has to see me every day and have a real relationship with me”. Kierkegaard also believed that God was calling him to celibacy and that his life was soon to be over as his health was always poor, being rejected by the military for being unfit previously.

    On Søren Kierkegaard

  • You were more of an imperfect escape from reality due to the asymmetry in our feelings for each other.

    Bimbo Ubermensch
    The Ocean

  • It’s the terror young men feel towards attractive women, who are nature itself, ever ready to reject them, intimately, at the deepest possible level. Nothing inspires self-consciousness, undermines courage, and fosters feelings of nihilism and hatred more than that.

    12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
    Jordan B. Peterson

  • And whatever quarrels there may be between them they ought not to call in their own mother to judge between them and tell tales of one another. They are their own judges. Love is a holy mystery and ought to be hidden from all other eyes, whatever happens. That makes it holier and better. They respect one another more, and much is built on respect.

    …

    The first phase of married love will pass, it is true, but then there will come a love that is better still.

    …

    And once they have children, the most difficult times will seem to them happy, so long as there is love and courage. Even toil will be a joy, you may deny yourself bread for your children and even that will be a joy, They will love you for it afterwards; so you are laying by for your future.

    Notes from the Underground
    Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  • And what if all goes well with the family, if the blessing of God is upon it, if the husband is a good one, loves you, cherishes you, never leaves you! There is happiness in such a family! Even sometimes there is happiness in the midst of sorrow; and indeed sorrow is everywhere.

    Notes from the Underground
    Fyodor Dostoyevsky