"Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry..." - Quote by Jane Austen

“I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.”

“Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.”

“Good-humoured, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being.”

“It's a funny thing that when a man hasn't anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.”

“No man should have a secret from his wife. She invariably finds it out.”

“At the beginning of a marriage ask yourself whether this woman will be interesting to talk to from now until old age. Everything else in marriage is transitory: most of the time is spent in conversation.”

“You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.”

“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.”

“I was once arrested with [Allen] Ginsburg. He was a big help to me. He was one of the few people who read unknown writer's work. Maybe he was just hustling me. He liked to flirt, Allen. They called him a monster but he was only falling in love.”