Friday, January 30, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (13)

Marriage 9 He was raging: "By golly, here they go and use up all the towels, every doggone one of 'em, and they use 'em and get 'em all wet and sopping, and never put out a dry one for me--of course, I'm the goat!--and then I want one and--I'm the only person in the doggone house that's got the slightest doggone bit of consideration for other people and thoughtfulness and consider there may be others that may want to use the doggone bathroom after me and consider--." Lewis, Babbitt. The Bathroom Morning Blues. RayS.

Marriage 10 "After a rather thorough discussion of all the domestic and social aspects of towels, she [his wife] apologized to Babbitt for his having an alcoholic headache; and he recovered enough to endure the search for a B.V.D. undershirt which had, he pointed out, malevolently been concealed among his clean pajamas." Lewis, Babbitt. Ouch! RayS.

Marriage 16 "He [Babbitt] really disliked being a family tyrant, and his nagging was as meaningless as it was frequent." Lewis, Babbitt.

Marriage 114 "He was sulkily silent; he maintained his bad temper at a high level of outraged nobility all the four blocks home."Lewis, Babbitt.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (12)

RayS. Scenes from a marriage (continued).

Marriage 379 " …an exasperating effort to command his [Kennicott’s] attention so that he would understand the nebulous things she had to tell him, instead of interrupting her by yawning, winding the clock, and going up to bed." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Marriage 383 "This marriage, it weaves people together; it’s not easy to break, even when it ought to be broken." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Marriage 405 "For a month they discussed it [their marriage and her leaving]…hurt each other very much, and sometimes they were close to weeping, and invariably he used banal phrases about her duties and she used phrases quite as banal about freedom…." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Marriage 408 "She felt that she was no longer one-half of a marriage but the whole of a human being." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Marriage 422 "It had not occurred to her that there was also a story of Will Kennicott, into which she entered only so much as he entered into hers; that he had bewilderments and concealments as intricate as her own, and soft treacherous desires for sympathy." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street. Both partners in the marriage fail to try to understand each other.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (11)

RayS: More scenes from a marriage.

Marriage 282 "At first he had amorously deceived himself into liking her experiments with food—the one medium in which she could express imagination—but now he wanted his round of favorite dishes: steak, roast beef, boiled pig’s feet, oatmeal, baked apples." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Marriage 284 "For the first time they had failed to make peace." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Marriage 285 “While it’s so hot, I think I’ll sleep in the spare room.” Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Marriage 297 "I guess I can weather it, same as I did earning my way through school and getting started in practice…wonder how long I can stand being an outsider in my own home?" Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Marriage 302 "The way to handle wives, like the fellow says, is to catch ‘em early, treat’ em rough, and tell ‘em nothing." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street. [And ignore that she is a human being. RayS.]

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (10)

RayS: Welcome to life in a June-January marriage.

Marriage 159 "They say that marriage is a magic change…I’m not changed." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Marriage 160 "She dropped into his lap and (after he had jerked back his head to save his eye glasses, and removed the glasses, and settled her in a position less cramping to his legs, and casually cleared his throat) he kissed her amiably…." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Marriage 161 "They trailed up-stairs, after he had turned out the lights and twice tested the front door to make sure it was fast." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Marriage 170 "What you want is a nice sweet cow of a woman who will enjoy having your dear friends talk about the weather and spit on the floor!" Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Marriage 228 "A thousand dreams governed by the fiction she had read…absorbed her drowsy lake afternoons, but always in the midst of them Kennicott came out from town, drew on khaki trousers which were plastered with dry fish scales, asked, 'Enjoying yourself?' and did not listen to her answer." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

RayS: It certainly isn't marriage Hollywood style, is it?

Monday, January 26, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (9)

Marriage 292 "It’s [family life’s] all being under somebody’s thumb." Cather, My Ántonia

Marriage 367 "I wondered whether the life that was right for one was ever right for two." Cather, My Ántonia. In my opinion, a profound thought. RayS.

Marriage 373 "But is a man to refuse to go where his whole future calls, only because his wife doesn’t like it?" Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Marriage 30 "And this thick man beside her, who dared to define her future, he was a stranger...turned in her seat, stared at him: who was he?" Sinclair Lewis, Main Street. The awakening. RayS.

Marriage 73 "...occasionally she was indignant that she should always have to petition him [her husband] for the money with which to buy his food...a nuisance to have to run down the street after him because she had forgotten to ask him for money at breakfast...he liked the lordliness of giving largess." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street. Does anyone remember this experience in a marriage? RayS.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (8)

Note from RayS: The following quotes are some plain truths about some marriages. Maybe all?

Marriage 162 Lena: "I don’t want to marry Nick, or any other man...seen a good deal of married life, and I don’t care for it...want to be so I can help my mother and the children at home, and not have to ask lief of anybody." Cather, My Ántonia

Marriage 217 "There lay the familiar streets, frozen with snow or liquid with mud...led to the houses of good people who were putting the babies to bed, or simply sitting still before the parlor stove, digesting their supper." Cather, My Ántonia

Marriage 282 "You know, Lena said confidentially, he married Mary because he thought she was strong-minded and would keep him straight." Cather, My Ántonia

Marriage 291 Lena: "Well, it’s mainly because I don’t want a husband; men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them, they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones...begin to tell you what’s sensible and what’s foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time...prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody." Cather, My Ántonia

Marriage 291 "She [Lena] remembered home as a place where there were always too many children, a cross man and work piling up around a sick woman." Cather, My Ántonia

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (7)

Marriage 32 "Sir John [Middleton] was a sportsman, Lady Middleton a mother; he hunted and shot, and she humored her children; and these were their only resources…continual engagements at home and abroad, however, supplied all the deficiencies of nature and education; supported the good spirits of Sir John, and gave exercise to the good-breeding of his wife." Austen, Sense and Sensibility. The good marriage keeps both partners busy? RayS.

Marriage 112 "His [Mr. Palmer’s] temper might perhaps be a little soured by finding, like many others of his sex, that through some unaccountable bias in favor of beauty, he was the husband of a very silly woman…." Austen, Sense and Sensibility. Most men marry empty-headed beauties? RayS.

Marriage 118 "…Lady Middleton resigned herself to the idea of it, with all the philosophy of a well-bred woman, contenting herself with merely giving her husband a gentle reprimand on the subject five or six times every day." Austen, Sense and Sensibility. Most wives are naggers? RayS.

Marriage 194 "Well, it is the oddest thing to me, that a man should use such a pretty girl so ill; but when there is plenty of money on one side, and next to none on the other…." Austen, Sense and Sensibility. Money is the root of all marriage? RayS.

Marriage 276 Mrs. Jennings on Edward and Lucy: "Wait for his having a living!—Aye, we all know how that will end;--they will wait a twelvemonth, and finding no good comes of it, will set down upon a curacy of fifty pounds a year, with the interest of his two thousand pounds…then they will have a child every year! and Lord help ‘em! how poor they will be!" Austen, Sense and Sensibility. Children lead to living beyond one's means? RayS.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (6)

Marriage 463 "This kind of derogatory remark, if persisted in by one or both parties to a marriage, will surely lead to divorce or, at best, a blow on the head with a glass ash tray." James Thurber. “My Own Ten Rules for a Happy Marriage.” 1953. Gross, ed. Essays.

Marriage 464 "A husband should not insult his wife publicly at parties…should insult her in the privacy of the home…if a man thinks the soufflés his wife makes are as tough as an outfielder’s glove, he should tell her so when they are at home, not when they are out at a formal dinner party where a perfect soufflé has just been served." James Thurber. “My Own Ten Rules for a Happy Marriage.” 1953. Gross, ed. Essays. The ethics of marriage. Ray S.

Marriage 464 "The wife who keeps saying, ‘Isn’t that just like a man?’ and the husband who keeps saying, ‘Oh, well, you know how women are,’ are likely to grow farther and farther apart through the years." James Thurber. “My Own Ten Rules for a Happy Marriage.” 1953. Gross, ed. Essays.

Marriage 465 "When a husband is reading aloud, a wife should sit quietly in her chair, relaxed but attentive…should not keep swinging one foot, start to wind her wrist watch, file her fingernails, or clap her hands in an effort to catch a mosquito…a good wife allows the mosquito to bite her when her husband is reading aloud…should not break in to correct her husband’s pronunciation, or to tell him one of his socks is wrong side out." James Thurber. “My Own Ten Rules for a Happy Marriage.” 1953. Gross, ed. Essays. Or when she is reading an article he is about to submit for publication. RayS.

Marriage 465 "A husband should try to remember where things are around the house so that he does not have to wait for his wife to get home from the hairdresser’s before he can put his hands on what he wants…perhaps every wife should draw for her husband a detailed map of the house, showing clearly the location of everything he might need…would lay the map down somewhere and not be able to find it until his wife got home." James Thurber. “My Own Ten Rules for a Happy Marriage.” 1953. Gross, ed. Essays. The first rule of a happy marriage: the wife can move anything anywhere and not tell her husband that she did so. Creates a sense of dependence on his part. RayS.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (5)

Marriage 435 "…the real fright came when she discovered that at times her father and mother hated each other; this was like standing on the doorsill of a familiar room and seeing in a lightning flash that the floor was gone, you were on the edge of a bottomless pit." Katherine Anne Porter. “The Necessary Enemy.” 1948. Gross, ed. Essays. Through the eyes of a child.

Marriage 436 "Marriage is not the end but only the beginning of…." Katherine Anne Porter. “The Necessary Enemy.” 1948. Gross, ed. Essays. ...of what?

Marriage 436 "That the candidates for this blissful condition [marriage] have never seen an example of it [a blissful marriage], nor ever knew anyone who had, makes no difference; that is the ideal and they will achieve." Katherine Anne Porter. “The Necessary Enemy.” 1948. Gross, ed. Essays. The ideal of marriage gets in the way of the real achievement of a productive marriage.

Marriage 437 "If the couple discharged their religious and social obligations, furnished forth a copious progeny, kept their troubles to themselves, maintained public civility and died under the same roof, even if not always on speaking terms, it was rightly regarded as a successful marriage." Katherine Anne Porter. “The Necessary Enemy.” 1948. Gross, ed. Essays. A successful marriage.

Marriage 438 "…when she spoke a vow to love and honor her husband until death, she did a very reckless thing, for it is not possible by an act of the will to fulfill such an engagement." Katherine Anne Porter. “The Necessary Enemy.” 1948. Gross, ed. Essays. We're dealing with people here, not ideals. The sooner that people realize that they are marrying people, the sooner marriage will become productive and not destructive.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (4)

Marriage 156 "He who is about to marry is on the road to repentance." Greek. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. "Repentance" for all that he did before he married?RayS.

Marriage 156 "Marriage is an evil that most men welcome." Menander. Greek. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. And later regret? RayS.

Marriage 207 "Praise married life, but remain single." Italian. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Marriage 236 "I give you a wife, but not a slave." Spanish. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. The biggest lie in Christendom is that in marriage two become one. A woman is a unique human being and personality with ambition and the desire to live a full life--quite apart from the ambition and life of her husband. RayS.

Marriage 405 Harriette Wilson: "I cannot for the life of me divest myself of the idea that if all were alike honorable and true, as I wish it to be, it would be unnecessary to bind men and women together by law, since two persons who may have chosen each other from affection, possessing heart and honor, could not part, and where there is neither the one nor the other, even marriage does not bind." Virginia Woolf. “Harriette Wilson.” 1925. Gross, ed. Essays. True love does not require marriage by law because if love and honor do not keep the partners together, neither can marriage by law. RayS.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (3)

Marriage 191 "When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal and exhausting condition until death do them part." George Bernard Shaw. Portable Curmudgeon.

Marriage 191 "The surest way to be alone is to get married." Gloria Steinem. Portable Curmudgeon.

Marriage 192 "Courtship to marriage…a very witty prologue to a very dull play." Congreve. Portable Curmudgeon.

Marriage 93 "The most happy marriage I can picture…would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman." Coleridge. Portable Curmudgeon.

Marriage 66 "Marry and be tamed." Spanish. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (2)

Marriage 150 "How men hate waiting while their wives shop for clothes and trinkets; how women hate waiting, often for much of their lives, while their husbands shop for fame and glory." Thomas Szasz. 1924. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Marriage 151 "Very often the only thing that comes between a charming man and a charming woman is the fact that they are married to each other." Robert DeFlers and Gaston Caillavet. 1914. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Marriage 151 "When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her." Sacha Guitry. 1948. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Marriage 13 "Paying alimony is like feeding hay to a dead horse." Groucho Marx. Portable Curmudgeon.

Marriage 190 "Marriage is a triumph of habit over hate." Oscar Levant. Portable Curmudgeon.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Quotes: Marriage (1)

Marriage 620 "As is frequently the case among the whalers of Martha’s Vineyard, so much of this storm-beaten widower’s life had been tossed away on distant seas, that out of twenty years of matrimony he had spent scarce three, and those at scattered intervals, beneath his own roof." Hawthorne: "Chippings with a Chisel." The sea-captain's marriage was to the sea.

Marriage 858 "A married couple had been invited, from a motive of bitter humor; it being well understood that they rendered each other unutterably miserable whenever they chanced to meet…." Hawthorne: "The Christmas Banquet." Marriage and misery.

Marriage 147 "Most people marry upon mingled motives, between convenience and inclination." Sam. Johnson. 1756. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Marriage 148 "Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight." Lichtenberg. 1764-99. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Marriage 150 "The fundamental trouble with marriage is that it shakes a man’s confidence in himself, and so greatly diminishes his general competence and effectiveness; his habit of mind becomes that of a commander who has lost a decisive and calamitous battle; he never quite trusts himself thereafter." H. L. Mencken. 1920. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms. The effects of marriage on men.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Quotes: Month of March (3)

March 80 "March is spring, sort of, usually." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

March 80 "Late March is a time of waiting, and by now the fabric of human patience has worn a little thin." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

March 81 March. "We know that May will come, with lilacs and apple blossoms, but [in March] we don’t know what the day after tomorrow will be like." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

March 85 March. "…the smell of the spring furrow newly turned." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Monday, January 12, 2009

Quotes: Month of March (2)

March 71 "There is something in a mild March day…." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

March 74 March. "Buds fatten on the elms, beading their twigs against the sky." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

8. March 76 March. "Brooks gurgle and flow again beneath their rotting ice." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

March 80 "March means maybe, but don’t bet on it." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

March 80 "There are no rules for March." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Friday, January 9, 2009

Quotes: The Month of March

March 60 "March comes, a kind of interregnum, winter’s sovereignty relaxing, spring not yet in control." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

March 62 "March has a dubious reputation at best…the hint of madness in the very mention of the March hare…the threat of dark deeds in the ides of March…lamb-and-lion belief…March mud…March floods…the winds of March…the March blizzard of ’88." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

March 62 "Maybe we give March its bad name because we are so impatient." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

March 66 "[The March wind]…the voice of seasons in transition." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

March 67 March. "But on a warm day in the woods you can sense the subtle fragrance of the resin that coats the buds of poplar trees and cottonwoods." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Quotes: Manners (2)

Manners 36 "I have seen a duchess fairly knocked down by the precipitancy of an officious coxcomb running to save her the trouble of opening a door." Jonathan Swift. “A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding.” 1714. Gross, ed. Essays.

Manners 34 "Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse." Jonathan Swift. “A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding.” 1714. Gross, ed. Essays.

Manners i Dr. Johnson ‘observed, that all works which describe manners, require notes in sixty or seventy years.’ Preface. Austen, Sense and Sensibility. The definition of "manners" changes over the years.

Manners 294 "…her manners were the mirror of her own modest and elegant mind." Austen, Mansfield Park. Her manners reflected the serene, orderly state of her mind.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Quotes: Manners (1)

Manners 211 "Manners rest on a twofold foundation: to show the other every attention yet not to obtrude upon him." Hugo von Hofmannstahl. 1922. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Manners 211 "It is possible for a man wholly to disappear and be merged in his manners." Thoreau. 1850. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms. In other words, he becomes through his manners a manikin.

Manners 212 "The test of good manners is to be patient with bad ones." Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 1050. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Manners 190 "Manners are especially the need of the plain; the pretty can get away with anything." Evelyn Waugh. Portable Curmudgeon.

Manners 286 "What once were vices are now custom (or common manners)." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. Bad manners in time become acceptable manners.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Quotes: Mankind (3)

Mankind x "I am sure some of them [the essays] reflect my disenchantment with man’s belief that he owns the earth and must dominate everything and everywhere." Introduction. Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Mankind 16 The progression of life. "…our long path upward from the ooze, from naked instinct to thought and comprehension." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Monday, January 5, 2009

Quotes: Mankind (2)

Mankind 24 "Man is neither angel nor beast, and it is unfortunately the case that anyone trying to act the angel acts the beast." Self-righteousness breeds intolerance. Pascal. 1670. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Mankind 24 " ‘Tis a disease particular to man and not discerned in any other creatures, to hate and despise itself." Only mankind can hate itself. Montaigne. 1580-88. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Mankind 24 "To say that man is made up of strength and weakness, of insight and blindness, of pettiness and grandeur, is not to draw up an indictment against him: it is to define him." Mankind's contradictions do not indict him; they define him. Diderot. 1762. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Mankind 35 "Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers heaven." Man's nature is limited; his aspirations are are unlimited, a reminder of his pre-birth origin in heaven. Larmartine. 1820 Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Mankind 190 "I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand." I love mankind as a concept; it's real people I can't stand. Charles Schultz. Portable Curmudgeon.