A lasting marriage, they say, is one where the two reach for different sections of the Sunday paper. Me, I go right for the obituaries, just like those very elderly characters in Muriel Spark's spooky novel, 'Memento Mori.'
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think marriage is one of those things that writers draw on, one of those emotional reservoirs that go way back.
Marriage fascinates me: how we negotiate its span, how we change within it, how it changes itself, and why some relationships survive and others do not. There isn't a single marriage that couldn't provide enough narrative arc for a novel.
Marriage - a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters in prose.
Marriage is the tomb of love.
Why marry? If you're not married, you just leave each other and it's cool. Who needs the paper? To me it means nothing.
A marriage is a solemn affair. The tempest of emotions and the myriad of arrangements are giddying, and when one is faced with these, clothing seems to be the last of one's priorities.
Marriage is a commitment for life. It is a permanent, lifelong relationship.
I believe the wedding vows are sacred and precious, and it's been one of my goals as a writer to portray the kind of marriages I've seen modeled in my family - my parents and grandparents, who all celebrated fifty-year anniversaries and well-beyond.
I never believed marriage was a lasting institution. I thought that to be married for five years was to be married forever.
I've never seen anyone deal in a literary way with what it takes to stay married for more than 50 years, and that seemed like a worthy goal.