Maggie Nelson Quotes

To sustain love, a man and a woman must continually be marrying and divorcing, moving with, against, away from, and beyond each other, saying 'yes' and 'no'.

Marriage is - among other things - a study in contradiction and disappointment, and inside that reality there is space for us to truly learn how to love.

The battles, the fights, the bruises, the bites. That's the way true love grows.

Relationships change even more than people. It's like two people changing. It's exponentially more volatile. Especially two teenagers.

The fact is that five years ago I was, as near as possible, a different person to what I am tonight. I, as I am now, didn't exist at all. Will the same thing happen in the next five years? I hope so.

We measure success and depth by length of time, but it is possible to have a deep relationship that doesn't always stay the same.

Love never stands still; it must inevitably be either growing or decaying - especially the love of marriage.

Who would have thought that grieving an old relationship and enjoying a new one could happen simultaneously, in parallel? Yet another thing you only find out once it's happening to you.

We love people differently at different stages of our knowledge of them. As love changes its hape and its nature, we have to decide what we're going to do about that love on any given day.

Becoming a woman is an act partly of nature and partly of self-invention.

And then she thought that you went on living one day after another, and in time you were somebody else, your previous self only like a close relative, a sister or brother, with whom you shared a past. But a different person, a separate life. Certainly neither she nor Inman were the people they had been the last time they were together. And she believed maybe she liked them both better now.

Sometimes when the spouse is really the culprit, it is hard to admit what you consider your little failures, but if you are going to have a better relationship, you admitting your part in the dynamics is a step in the road to healing. Because if they see you modeling apology, for example, and they see you modeling love, they may well get the idea that maybe they need to apologize.

The very best relationship has a gardener and a flower. The gardener nurtures and the flower blooms.

I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.

Sorrow for not understanding like I understand now the unpredictable, profound journey that marriage is.

On second marriage: It took me by surprise, too, because overnight, we totally changed. I think one day we had just nothing in common. And it's scary but I think it can happen when you get involved and you don't know yourself yet.

Love is always changing and unless we stay aware and change with it, it eludes us.

Every relationship is an experiment and what one learns from it is so fascinating.

There's something human that has to do with time and space and being who I am that is in progress and always will be in progress. And who I am, on different days, different moments, depends on different aspects of my past.

Alas! it is not the child but the boy that generally survives in the man.

Maybe we've grown out of each other.

I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly; “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.

Maybe I could have loved you better. Maybe you should have loved me more. Maybe our hearts were just next in line. Maybe everything breaks sometime.

Howl has been very kind to me." And this was true, Sophie realized. Howl showed his kindness rather strangely, but, considering all Sophie did to annoy him, he had been very good to her indeed. "Do listen. He's not wicked at all!" There was a bit of a fizz from the grate at this, where Calcifer was watching with some interest. " He isn't!" Sophie said, to Calcifer as much as to Fanny.

For children love is a feeling; for adults, it is a decision. Children wait to learn if their love is true by seeing how long it lasts; adults make their love true by never wavering from their commitment.