Donald Barthelme Quotes

Wit may do very well for a mistress, but [I] should prefer reason for a wife.

My wife's beautiful. That's why I married her. Because I want to see her every day.

A man who doesn't make you feel special, wanted or important would make a very poor husband.

There's no healthy life possible without some sensual feeling between the husband and wife, but there's nothing in the world more awful than married life when it's the only common ground.

If I use the word romance, whether it's my wife or not, it does not mean sex. We can use the word sex when sex is there.

The householder must always please his wife with money, clothes, love and faith and never do anything to disturb her. That man who has succeeded in getting the love of a chaste wife has succeeded in his religion and has all the virtues.

I don't know about making a passionate love story, even if it's appealing for an audience to see a husband and wife make love on the screen.

I've learned that you know your husband still loves you when there are two brownies left and he takes the smaller one.

Sex is good for about two years, and then you need love.

Nobody gets married to a clever song, let alone falls in love to one.

Women do generally manage to love the guys they marry more than they manage to marry the guys they love.

It doesn't sound so far-fetched, right? When two people love each other? While a part of me still wants to believe it's possible, I know it's not going to happen

And I'll tell ya, I'm really enjoying this marriage thing. You think about each other. You care about each other. It's wonderful! Plus, I love saying 'my wife.' Once I started saying it, I couldn't stop - 'my wife' this, 'my wife' that...it's an amazing way to begin a sentence.

What we love about love is the fever, which marriage puts to bed and cures.

If I were really, truly in love with someone who was truly in love with me, then I would get married, but that would be the only reason I'd get married.

People say, 'Why is he bored with her?' Because he's a human being, that's why; same way his wife is bored with him. That is marriage - anything that's supposed to be forever, your going to get bored with it. And there is nothing wrong with it, so don't take it personal; if you are with somebody for ten years and they are not bored with you? Then something is wrong with them.

Love-making is radical, while marriage is conservative.

I love you, Gabby, more than you'll ever know. You're everything I've ever wanted in a wife. You're every hope and every dream I've ever had, and you've made me happier than any man could possibly be. I don't ever want to give that up. I can't.

I never felt comfortable about my looks until I married Reed Vreeland. I believe in love at first sight because that's what it was. I knew the moment our eyes met that we would marry.

I believe love - and its feminine, though not necessarily female, counterpart, romance, is a private thing. It's something I'm not willing to share with the public.

The more Lord Maccon considered it, the more he grew to like the idea. Certainly his imagination was full of pictures of what he and Alexia might do together once he got her home in a properly wedded state, but now those lusty images were mixing with others: waking up next to her, seeing her across the dining table, discussing science and politics, having her advice on points of pack controversy and BUR difficulties. No doubt she would be useful in verbal frays and social machinations, as long as she was on his side.

Regarding love what can you say? It's not the quantity of your sexual relations that counts. It's the quality. On the other hand if the quantity drops below once every eight months, I would definitely look into it.

I'm not sure if a mental relation with a woman doesn't make it impossible to love her. To know the mind of a woman is to end in hating her. Love means the pre-cognitive flow...it is the honest state before the apple.

A friendship with a woman is not a sin. (It's) a friendship. A romantic relationship with a woman who is not your wife, that is a sin.

I view my wife as my lover, and we have a bond that goes beyond words like wife or girlfriend or mother.