“Never say that marriage has more of joy than pain.”

“There's no regret more painful than the regret of things that never were.”

“The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.”

“I will never say the things that I want to say to you. I know the damage it would do. I love you more than I hate my loneliness and pain.”

“To care passionately for another human creature brings always more sorrow than joy; but at the same time, Elinor, one would not be without experience. Anyone who has never really loved has never really lived..”

“Experts on romance say for a happy marriage there has to be more than a passionate love. For a lasting union, they insist, there must be a genuine liking for each other. Which, in my book, is a good definition for friendship.”

“Seldom, or perhaps never, does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly and without crises; there is no coming to consciousness without pain.”

“The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.”

“I wonder, among all the tangles of this mortal coil, which one contains tighter knots to undo, & consequently suggests more tugging, & pain, & diversified elements of misery, than the marriage tie.”

“Living was a dangerous past-time, and often quite painful—but there was also such joy in living, such beauty, things that one would otherwise never see, never experience, never know. The risk of pain and loss was a part of living.”