Welcome to the web’s most comprehensive site of quotations by women. 43,939 quotations are searchable by topic, by author's name, or by keyword. Many of them appear in no other collection. And new ones are added continually.
Search by Topic:
Find quotations by TOPIC (coffee, love, dogs)
or search alphabetically below.
Search by Last Name:
Search by Keyword:
Husbands
-
“Getting a hat is like getting a husband. It doesn't matter how decorative or smart they are if they don't suit you.”
-
“Husbands are like caterpillars, they improve with keeping.”
-
“ 'You can't be expected to think of everything,' said George in soothing tones. That's the sort of remark that breaks up marriages.”
-
“She thought she was married to him, but it turned out the warranty hadn't run out on his first wife.”
-
“Estimated from a wife's experience, the average man spends fully one-quarter of his life in looking for his shoes.”
-
“Husbands are never happy. My husband asked me for more space, so I locked him out of the house.”
-
“... the husband thinks that the wife knows where everything is, huh? Like they think the uterus is a tracking device. He comes in: 'Hey, Roseanne! Roseanne! Do we have any Cheetos left?' Like he can't go over and lift up that sofa cushion himself?”
-
“... all women, without in the least meaning it, consider every man they meet as a possible husband for themselves or for their best friend.”
-
“... changing husbands is only changing troubles ... ”
-
“... men love their wives not because of their virtues, but in spite of them.”
-
“'Ellen!' — he was one of those men who always call their wife's name the minute they enter the house ... ”
-
“ The man she had was kind and clean / And well enough for every day, / But, oh, dear friends, you should have seen / The one that got away!”
-
“[To woman bragging about having kept her husband for seven years:] Don't worry, if you keep him long enough, he'll come back in style.”
-
“ If he lies on the davenport all day, maybe it would help for you to think of him as less of a husband and more of an afghan.”
-
“I went into a clothes store one day and the lady said, 'Madam, you have got to try this dress on. It is so sexy, it will give you husband ideas.' I said, 'What, does a brain come with it?'”
-
“A man whose every exertion is bent upon showing up the flaws in his wife's character must be at least partially responsible for some of them.”
-
“My grandmother was a very tough cookie. She buried three husbands. Two of them were just napping.”
-
“... what she didn't know was the loss of self when a husband dies. What she didn't know was the cold side of the bed, the side that would never be warm again. What she didn't know was the hollowness of the halls of her home. Where was the deep voice, the heavy walk?”
-
“It is beginning to look as if the nicest husband is always the one someone else is living with, no?”
-
“I don't think there's any intrinsic difference between a lover and a husband. ... If I were cynical, I would say that a woman should have both a good husband and a lover. But I'm not cynical so I'll just say that a woman should have a lover who's a good husband and a husband who's a good lover, perhaps both.”
-
“Your husband is the boss — and don't forget it.”
-
“She had always struck him as the most extravagant of women, yet it turned out that by a miracle of thrift she had for years kept a superfluous husband on the chance that he might some day be useful.”
-
“[On her future husband:] ... I ... felt little more than indifference towards him, though I was not indifferent to the Russian Crown.”
-
“... I think a bad husband is far worse than no husband ...”
-
“If you were not already my dearly loved husband I should certainly fall in love with you. ”
-
“'Tis the established custom [in Vienna] for every lady to have two husbands, one that bears the name, and another that performs the duties.”
-
“In short I will part with anything for you but you.”
-
“This book is dedicated to my own lawful pardner, Josiah, whom (although I have been his consort for a little upwards of fourteen years) I still love with a cast-iron devotedness.”
-
“Mrs. Hall, of Sherborne, was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she expected, owing to a fright. I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband. ”
-
“A man'll seem like a person to a woman, year in, year out. She'll put up and she'll put up. Then one day he'll do something maybe no worse than what he's been a-doing all his life. She'll look at him. And without no warning he'll look like a varmint.”
-
“The only way to make a husband over according to one's ideas ... would be to adopt him at an early age, say four.”
-
“... no friend can supply the absence of a good husband ...”
-
“There is nothing on earth so savage — even a bear robbed of her cubs — as a hungry husband.”
-
“Few husbands (and the longer I observe, the more I am convinced of the truth of what I am about to say, and I make no exception in favor of education or station) have the magnanimity to use justly, generously, the power which the law puts in their hands.”
-
“To be a mother and a wife, / I'm often urged by all my kith / And kin — but as for husbands, life / Is easier without than with.”
-
“... if, after this lying-in, M. de Grignan does not allow you rest, as he would to a piece of good ground, I shall be so far from believing in his affection for you, that I shall imagine, on the contrary, he wishes to get rid of you.”
-
“He looked home-made, as though his wife had self-consciously knitted or somehow contrived a husband when she sat alone at night.”
-
“A lover may be a shadowy creature, but husbands are made of flesh and blood.”
-
“Oh! how I long to see my dear husband, that I may quarrel with him!”
-
“My husband will never chase another woman. He's too fine, too decent, too old.”
-
“It is commonplace in this century that women form the leisure class; and this leisure class of women, like leisured classes everywhere, has its leisure at the expense of other people, who in this case are the husbands.”
-
“I have known many single men I should have liked in my life (if it had suited them) for a husband; but very few husbands have I ever wished was mine.”
-
“[When asked why she never married:] There was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all the afternoon, and a cat that comes home late at night.”
-
“'He was a good husband. Always. If he had to go away on a trip he always said, 'Enjoy yourself, Hulda. Let things go. You can do them all when I get back.'”
-
“'Hermann is such a good husband,' went on Mrs. Bauer. 'I've never had a care. When we were first married it was the same. What, doing the supper dishes when you're so tired, he'd say! No, no, Hulda, he'd say, I won't have you worn out like that. You wait and do them in the morning, he'd say.'”
-
“... he made no joke in his own home and he was seldom merry even with his own children. He was such a one as seemed to save all his good humor and his merry, lovable looks for strangers and for those who were not of his own house.”
-
“Being married meant knowing that the man in your life would always come home for you to say sorry to; it meant never having to paint your own guttering; it meant always having someone there whose wrinkles were growing at the same pace as yours. I couldn't imagine facing a future that didn't include a proper, paid up husband.”
-
“... I was brought up among the sort of self-important woman who had a husband as one has an alibi ...”
-
“A husband is indeed thought by both sexes so very valuable, that scarce a man who can keep himself clean and make a bow, but thinks he is good enough to pretend to any woman ...”
-
“I think every woman is entitled to a middle husband she can forget.”
-
“... nor did he make the least provision for either of us, when he went abroad. 'Tis true, I was then in Lincoln's Inn-Fields Playhouse, and from thence engaged at a good salary with the late Mr. Fielding; but then I was as liable to death or infirmities as any other part of the creation, which might have disempowered me from getting my own, or my child's bread.”
-
“As I have, among many other censures, labored under that of being a giddy, indiscreet wife, I must take this opportunity of referring myself to the superior judgment of those who read my story ... in less than a month after marriage, I received the most demonstrative proofs of disregard, where I ought to have found the greatest tenderness: to be even to my face, apparently convinced of his insatiate fondess for a plurality of common wretches, that were to be had for half a crown. This, consequently, raised in me both aversion and contempt ... ”
-
“'I rather suspect her of being in love with him.' 'Her own husband? Monstrous! What a selfish woman!'”
-
“... the quoted words of a husband were as sacred, as final and uncontradictable as a proverb or cliché. However she might regard him in private, in public each woman's husband became an absolute authority on everything.”
-
“It seemed that the impulse to defend one's husband could co-exist with the most bitter knowledge of his deficiencies.”
-
“She had met wives like that before, who referred complacently to their mates as 'perfect bears,' as though sullen bad temper were some sort of accomplishment.”
-
“[On being asked if she would steal a husband:] Wouldn't that be like shoplifting in a secondhand store?”
-
“A husband is like an egg — if kept continually in hot water he becomes hard boiled.”
-
“... I have the best husband one could dream of; I could never have imagined finding one like him. He is a true gift of heaven, and the more we live together the more we love each other.”
-
“An easy-going husband is the one indispensable comfort of life.”
-
“[When asked how many husbands she had had:] You mean apart from my own?”
-
“Husbands are like fire. They go out when unattended.”
-
“Women may not think much about it before marriage, but kindness is one of the greatest assets in a husband.”
-
“One way for a husband to get the last word is to apologize.”
-
“I have no wish for a second husband. I had enough of the first. I like to have my own way — to lie down mistress, and get up master.”
-
“The guy who used to appear at your front door every night because he was wild to see you, now appears there every night because that's where he happens to live.”
-
“Good husbands make good wives.”
-
“... the World, by tend'rest proof discovers / They err, who say that husbands can't be lovers. / With such return of passion, as is due ...”
-
“One thing she has noticed about married women, and that is how many of them have to go about creating their husbands. They have to start ascribing preferences, opinions, dictatorial ways. Oh, yes, they say, my husband is very particular. He won't touch turnips. He won't eat fried meat. (Or he will only eat fried meat.) He likes me to wear blue (brown) all the time. He can't stand organ music. He hates to see a woman go out bareheaded. He would kill me if I took one puff of tobacco. This way, bewildered, sidelong-looking men are made over, made into husbands, heads of households.”
-
“Hollywood is no place for a woman to find a husband, especially her own.”
-
“Think of your husband as a lover from a previous life, and wonder what you did to deserve him.”
-
“... he would let me tell my dreams. That's the main difference between a husband and a psychoanalyst.”
-
“[When asked how many husbands she had had:] My own, or other people's?”
-
“... [upon marrying] men appear to lose a large part of their capacity as adults; they can no longer feed themselves, house themselves, look after their health, or attend to their social responsibilities ... most of them upon marriage lose the capacity even of writing to their own mother.”
-
“This was one of Cassandra's special virtues, that she anticipated her husband's wishes almost before he knew what they were.”
-
“[When asked if her husband was still living:] It's a matter of opinion.”
-
“... he was just about a dozen men packaged as one jealous husband. He was so changeable that at times I felt quite polyandrous.”
-
“Real genius consists in making the man for you out of the man you have.”
-
“All along, one of my major complaints was his absence from home, and even worse, his absence when he was home.”
-
“[On her husband:] The other day he woke up with a headache. I felt sorry for him. I would like to help him but I can't. I told him so many times. When he jumps out of bed — it should be feet first.”
-
“[On men:] ... you never know what they're like until you get them home and take them out of their packages.”
-
“Having your husband at a party is like adding anchovies to a salad. I love anchovies, but you can't taste anything else.”
-
“The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is to be hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger ...”
-
“ Some women work so hard to make good husbands that they never quite manage to make good wives.”
-
“[On husband Hume Cronyn:] Whenever he's late for dinner, I know he's either having an affair or is lying dead in the street. I always hope it's the street.”
-
“Husbands are awkward things to deal with; even keeping them in hot water will not make them tender.”
-
“If ever two were one, then surely we, / If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee; / If ever wife was happy in a man, / Compare with me, ye women, if you can.”
-
“When I retired, I found I had not enough money and too much husband.”
-
“Husbands is the most undiscovered nation of people there is.”
-
“Women's magazines continue to print 'helpful' articles on How to Hang on to Your Husband while thousands of wives write to me and complain that 'hanging is too good for 'em.'”
-
“[When asked how many husbands she'd had:] Two of my own, my dear, and several of my friends'.”
-
“He loved three things in life: / Evensong, white peacocks / And old maps of America. / He hated it when children cried, / He hated tea with raspberry jam / And women's hysterics. / ... And I was his wife.”
-
“I was so uncomfortable at a party recently when the conversation droned on about women who are constantly getting married. I was on the edge of my chair, close to squirming in embarrassment because I myself was guilty of four husbands. I finally leaned forward and squeaked, 'But one died!'”
-
“I have never known my husband to approve any act of mine which I myself valued.”
-
“A husband, Monsieur Marsac, is like a lobster salad. When it is good, it is very good, and when it is bad it is intolerable.”