Marriage is not something that can be accomplished all at once; it has to be constantly reaccomplished. A couple must never indulge in idle tranquility with the remark: "The game is won; let's relax." The game is never won. The chances of life are such that anything is possible. Remember what the dangers are for both sexes in middle age. A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

Mutuality has tumbled into undeserved obscurity by the primacy our society places on the art of the deal. The prevailing myth reaching most contemporary ears is this: relationships are 50-50. When one person does a nice thing for the other, he is entitled to an equally pleasing benefit – the sooner, the better, under the terms of this erroneous dictum. The physiology of love is no barter.

Marriage, it's like roulette: Sometimes one wins, often one loses. Even if you're very in love, it can still go bad.

I’ve been happily married forty-eight years, and I ought to know something about it. The important thing in marriage is the relationship between two people, and when one becomes married — I mean really has become married — one has shifted the center of regard from oneself to the relationship of the two. And when you think of yourself as sacrificing or giving up things, it is not for the other person that you are doing it, it is for the relationship. And you are as much in the relationship as the other one is, do you see what I mean? This is what you are dealing with, the two together. And you have to think of yourself not as this one, but as these two as one. And I say if your marriage isn’t the highest priority in your whole life, you’re not married, that’s all. And the thing I frequently say is that marriage is not a long love affair.

Marriage is tough, because it is woven of all these various elements, the weak and the strong. "In love-ness" is fragile for it is woven only with the gossamer threads of beauty. It seems to me absurd to talk about "happy" and "unhappy" marriages.

No, there are three people in a marriage, there's the woman, there's the man, and there's what I call the third person, the most important, the person who is composed of the man and woman together.

you can't be value free when it comes to marriage

It is not every man's fate to marry the woman who loves him best

I’ve been married fifty years.
If I was to give one piece of advice to young couples, it’d be this: Never lose your temper at the same time. If somebody’s really mad, the other one better make a retreat.

However, never say never because ultimately my destiny might not be in marriage NOW, but maybe when I’m 75yrs old. You never can tell

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

I think marriage is all about timing. Getting married is insanity; I mean, it's a risk – who knows if you're going to be together forever? But you both say, 'We're going to take this chance, in the same spirit.

All marriage is such a lottery -- the happiness is always an exchange -- though it may be a very happy one -- still the poor woman is bodily and morally the husband's slave. That always sticks in my throat. When I think of a merry, happy, and free young girl -- and look at the ailing aching state a young wife is generally doomed to -- which you can't deny is the penalty of marriage.