“I married. I became a wife. I acquired a husband. I had a ceremonial wedding in style. Whichever way you say it -- it was bound to end badly.”

“I want to tell you, don't marry suffering. Some people do. They get married to it, and sleep and eat together, just as husband and wife. If they go with joy they think it's adultery.”

“In a way, it is beautiful to be young and hard up. With the right wife, and I had her, deprivation became a game.”

“I take thee… to be my awful wedded husband”

“[of his wife Frankie] "In fact, if only I had been the perfect husband, she would have been the perfect wife."”

“I would be married, but I'd have no wife, I would be married to a single life.”

“Well, what I mean is that I shouldn't mind being a bride at a wedding, if I could be one without having a husband.”

“I, marry? Oh, I could never bring myself to do it. I would have been in mortal misery all my life for fear my wife might say, "That's a pretty little thing," after I had finished a picture.”

“I don't need my head examined, but where were you when I married my second husband. Sheesh.”

“By all means I will be married if you wish it. But on these conditions: everything must be as it has been hitherto—that is, she must live in Moscow while I live in the country, and I will come and see her. … I promise to be an excellent husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, will not appear every day in my sky.”