“Rosa Hubermann was sitting on the edge of the bed with her husband's accordion tied to her chest. Her fingers hovered above the keys. She did not move. She didn't ever appear to be breathing.” 
― Markus Zusak

“Men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage - they've experienced pain and bought jewelry.” 
― Rita Rudner

“Marriage, n.: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.” 
― Ambrose Bierce

“Not everyone believed in marriage then. To marry was to say you believed in the future and in the past, too - that history and tradition and hope could stay knit together to hold you up.” 
― Paula McLain

“That was true, Iris would sometimes think, about marriage: it was only a boat, too. A wooden boat, difficult to build, even more difficult to maintain, whose beauty derived at least in part from its unlikelihood. Long ago the pragmatic justifications for both marriage and wooden-boat building had been lost or superseded. Why invest countless hours, years, and dollars in planing and carving, gluing and fastening, caulking and fairing, when a fiberglass boat can be had at a fraction of the cost? Why struggle to maintain love and commitment over decades when there were far easier ways to live, ones that required no effort or attention to prevent corrosion and rot? Why continue to pour your heart into these obsolete arts? Because their beauty, the way they connect you to your history and to the living world, justifies your efforts. A long marriage, like a classic wooden boat, could be a thing of grace, but only if great effort was devoted to its maintenance. At first your notions of your life with another were no more substantial than a pattern laid down in plywood. Then year by year you constructed the frame around the form, and began layering memories, griefs, and small triumphs like strips of veneer planking bent around the hull of everyday routine. You sanded down the rough edges, patched the misunderstandings, faired the petty betrayals. Sometimes you sprung a leak. You fell apart in rough weather or were smashed on devouring rocks. But then, as now, in the teeth of a storm, when it seemed like all was lost, the timber swelled, the leak sealed up, and you found that your craft was, after all, sea-kindly.” 
― Ayelet Waldman

“Did you ever see so many pee-wee hats, Carl?" "They're beanies."
"They call them pee-wees in Brooklyn."
"But I'm not in Brooklyn."
"But you're still a Brooklynite."
"I wouldn't want that to get around, Annie."
"You don't mean that, Carl."
"Ah, we might as well call them beanies, Annie."
"Why?"
"When in Rome do as the Romans do."
"Do they call them beanies in Rome?" she asked artlessly.
"This is the silliest conversation...” 
― Betty Smith

“It is within the bonds of marriage that I, for one, found a greater freedom to be and to become and to share myself thatn I can imaine ever having found in any other kind of relationship.”
― Frederick Buechner

“In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.” 
― Samuel Butler