why should any independent, intelligent female choose to subject herself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband? I assure you, I have yet to meet a man as sensible as myself!

Amelia the bright-sider believes it is better to be alone than to be with someone who doesn't share your sensibilities and interests. (It is, right?) Her mother likes to say that novels have ruined Amelia for real men.

"There was no way in which I could have intended that [to get married]!" she interrupted him. "Tell me, would one of you [men] want that perhaps, a young man for instance, who had spent his entire youth in order to become free and self-reliant, and who was just on the threshold -- about to reach his goal -- who had learned to love life because of it, because of his professional opportunities, his responsibilities, his independence? No, I cannot envision this as my aim in life: home, family, housewife, children -- it is alien to me, alien. Perhaps only at this moment, at this time in my life, how do I know? Or maybe I would never be good at all that. Love and marriage are simply not the same thing. -- (Fenitschka) p. 39

I don’t like to be called “Mrs.” because I am not married, and I only belong to myself. I admire and respect people who have been successfully married for a long time, but I cannot do it. So I decided to never marry again.

my nature does not lend itself to the meekness required of a wife in our society. I could not endure a man who would let himself be ruled by me, and I would not endure a man who tried to rule me.

I rebelled against early marriage and the traditions that exclude women and make them a mere tool for the traditional and patriarchal iron fist that sets them a binding path, without regard to their personal choices.

I worship you, but I loathe marriage. I hate its smugness, its safety, its compromise and the thought of you interfering with my work, hindering me; what would you answer?

Marriage is a fine institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.

I don't see why a maid should take a husband when she's bold enough to fight her own battles,

I call every man intolerant from principle, who conceives no man can be a man of virtue and probity, who does not believe exactly what he does, and unmercifully consigns to perdition all those who do not think like himself.

On Providence

I am not fit to marry. I am often cross, and I like my own way, and I have a distaste for men.

Arthur Miller wouldn't have married me if I had been nothing but a dumb blonde.

"Why don't you marry me?" "Because I don't want to. I don't want to marry any one." She felt stifled and ill, and she pushed him away, saying irritably: "Anyway, you're a Fascist, too." (Chapter 6, p106)