“The strange beauty of marriage: it’s full of hard times and hard lessons that no one can ever prepare you for. But in the end, those are the things that give richness to your life together – and make your love even deeper and stronger than when it began. (on 8 things no one tells you about marriage)”

“Waking up from a good dream to face the harsh morning daylight may not seem like a reason to celebrate. But trust me, it is because once you let go of all the hokey stories of eternal bliss, you find that the reality of marriage is far richer and more rewarding than you ever could have guessed. Hard yes. Frustrating, yes. But full of its own powerful, quiet enhancements just the same, and that’s better than any fairy tale. (on 8 things no one tells you about marriage)”

“... I will say this. Marriage is work. It's hard work. Harder than anything else you'll ever do. Believe me, I know. And do you want to know why?' James nodded and Ben Latrobe leaned forward as if to impart a deep, mysterious secret. 'Because marriage isn't about the wedding or the wedding trip afterward. It isn't about cozy nights spent in each other's arms or the way she makes you feel when she smiles. Oh, those things all have a part in it, but a very minor one. No, James, marriage is about sticking it out when it isn't so nice. Marriage is being there to pick up the pieces when your perfect world falls apart. It's seeing the mess you've made of things and being willing to work through it until you have created something better than you had before. It's listening to her fears, her troubles, and concerns. It's eating meals that don't taste as good as those your mother fixed, enduring her temperamental outburts and tears, and not giving up when things get hard.' Latrobe paused for a moment and a frown lined his face where the smile had been only moments before. 'True love is standing by your mate when his health fails, along with his business.' ... 'It's knowing that the world goes on and you can depend on each other even when everything else around you lies in ruins at your feet...”

“The London season is like one of those Drury Lane melodramas in which marriage is always the ending. And no one ever seems to give any thought as to what happens after. But marriage isn’t the end of the story it’s the beginning. And it demands the efforts of both partners to make a success of it.”

“The thing about gay marriage is simply that it's not gay. It's marriage. If you are uncomfortable with marriage, you can not outlaw marriage. And, shocking, even if homosexuality makes someone uncomfortable, one can not outlaw identifying as or practicing homosexuality. So seeing as both homosexuality and marriage are legal, their being combined should be no big deal.”

“Marriage is a very strange thing. It’s a very public institution, it’s meant to tell the world that two people are going to live together, to declare that their children will be legal, that these children can inherit their property. It’s meant for social living, to ensure that some rules are observed, so that men and women don’t cross the lines drawn from them. At the same time, marriage is an intensely private affair, no outsider will know the state of some one else’s marriage. It’s a closed room, a locked room…”