Evan Esar Quotes

There is a crisis in America. That crisis is divorce. It is easier to get out of a marriage than (to get out of a) contract to buy a used car.

For 50 percent of Americans marriage is forever, for the rest of us there is another adventure.

Divorce these days is a religious vow, as if the proper offspring of marriage.

I believe that the dissolution of a marriage comes about by the breaking down of self-esteem.

Who among us is not thinking about divorce, except for a few tiny-minded stick-in-the-muds who don't count?

Divorce: fission after fusion.

There is a rhythm to the ending of a marriage just like the rhythm of a courtship-only backward. You try to start again but get into blaming over and over. Finally you are both worn out, exhausted, hopeless. Then lawyers are called in to pick clean the corpses. The death has occurred much earlier.

The first divorce in the world may have been a tragedy, but the hundred-millionth is not necessarily one.

In college, I had a course in Latin, and one day the word "divorce" came up. I always figured it came from some root that meant "divide." In truth, it comes from "divertere," which means "to divert." I believe that. All divorce does is divert you, taking you away from everything you thought you knew and everything you thought you wanted and steering you into all kinds of other stuff, like discussions about your mother's girdle and whether she should marry someone else.

For some reason, we see divorce as a signal of failure, despite the fact that each of us has a right, and an obligation, to rectify any other mistake we make in life.

Divorce is an embarrassing public admission of defeat.

Real divorce takes place without a decree.

Divorce is my generation's coming of age ceremony - a ritual scarring that makes anything that happens afterward seem bearable.

As soon as I get through with you, you'll have a clear case for divorce and so will my wife.

Divorce also entails the beginning of a supposition that that familial reality might have obstructed one's ability to perceive others.

But for a man, it's different. Like, separation can take years - it can take years to make divorce final. What am I supposed to do during those years? I think that's, you know it's not the *craziest* thing, but it's where a lot of rumors come from. It's frustrating.

Every divorce is the result of selfishness on the part of one or both parties to a marriage contract.

There is cruelty in divorce. There is cruelty in forced or unfortunate marriage. We will continue to cry at weddings because we know how bittersweet, how fragile is the truth. We will always need legal divorce just as an emergency escape hatch is crucial in every submarine. No sense, however, in denying that after every divorce someone will be running like a cat, tin cans tied to its tail: spooked and slowed down.

Divorce is the price people play for playing with matches.

The divorce has lasted way longer than the marriage, but finally it's over.

Actually the best thing I did was to get thrown out by my wife. She's living with a fitness instructor. He drinks that yellow stuff in tins. He's an idiot.

Getting a divorce is nearly always as cheerful and useful an occupation as breaking valuable china.

Oprah deserves the best. I am not the best when it comes to divorce. What do I know about divorce? Nothing at that time.

Marriages come and go, but divorce is forever.