Helen Rowland

“ There is the kiss that sootheth and the kiss that thrilleth, the kiss that flattereth and the kiss that is a pastime. But the best of all kisses is the first kiss; for it is the most difficult.
Yet, in all the days of thy life, no two men shall kiss thee alike. For one man shall regard thy kisses as a boon, and another shall regard them as an amusement; but an husband shall consider them, as the shaving of his chin, a morning duty. ”

“ She just lays the whole feast before the man, flings all her charms at his head at once, surfeits him with the champagne of her wit and lets him eat all the sugar off his cake right away. The love affair springs up like a mushroom and—"
"Oh, well," interrupted the widow impatiently, "I like mushroom love affairs. I like a man who can fling himself headlong into an affair and——"
"Of course you do!" sighed the bachelor, "every woman does. The sensible and temperate man who will love her all his life——"
"A little!" said the widow contemptuously. ”

“ MEN say they admire a woman with high ideals and principles; but it's the kind with high heels and dimples that a wife hesitates to introduce to her husband.
MARRIAGE is the black coffee that a man takes to settle him after the love-feast.
LOVE is the feeling that makes a man turn on the hot water when he meant to light the gas, go hunting for a collar when what he wanted was a pair of socks, shave every day, and forget whether or not he has had any lunch.
HAPPINESS is at high-tide at the full of the honeymoon.
SOMEHOW, a man who has been thrown over always lands on his knees to another girl. ”

“ FLIRTATION is a duel in which the combatants cross lies, sighs and eyes—and the coolest heart wins.
Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common-sense.
In the medley of love a man's soul sings a sonata, while his heart plays a waltz and his pulse beats to rag-time.
Better be a strong man's "rib" than a weak man's "backbone."
True love isn't the kind that endures through long years of absence, but the kind that endures through long years of propinquity.
A man seldom thinks of marrying when he meets his ideal woman ”

“ CHAPTER ONE My Daughter, Hearken Unto My Words, And attend diligently to my counsel; for the understanding of Man is the beginning of a good income, and a knowledge of his ways more profitable than a higher education.
Behold, a woman delighteth to travel the path of love slowly and through devious by-ways of flirtation and sentiment, but a man rusheth over it at the speed limit. ”

“ LOVE is like gambling; you want to be sure that you are a good loser before you go in for the game.
A MAN'S idea of honor is so peculiar; he would die rather than steal a friend's money or cheat him at cards, but he will steal his wife or cheat him out of his daughter with perfect equanimity.
WHEN you see what some girls marry, you realize how they must hate to work for a living.
FLIRTATION is like a cocktail with no headache in it, champagne with no "next morning."
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ALL men are the same after ten years of matrimony ”

“ A good husband is one who will get up and lift the ice off the dumbwaiter instead of lying back and lifting his voice to tell you how to do it without "hurting your itsy bitsy fingers."
The shallower a man's love, the more it bubbles over into eloquence. When his emotions go deep, words stick in his throat, and have to be hauled out of him with a derrick.
To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little; to be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all. ”

“ For, seven times seven weeks, mayest thou devote thyself unto a meerschaum, and seven times seven months, unto a damsel!
“Yet if thou layest them aside, and thinkest to cease from thy devotions for but a little while, lo, the pipe hath faded—and the woman hath forgotten thee.
“Verily, verily, there is no rest for a peaceful man! For, life with a pipe, or a woman, is all toil and travail and vexation. ”

“ HAPPINESS in marriage doesn't depend half so much on whether or not a man keeps the Ten Commandments and goes to church as on whether or not he keeps a pretty stenographer and comes home to dinner.
WHEN a man declares that he knows his own mind, his wife may sometimes wonder why he seems so proud of the acquaintance.
MARRYING a widower is like inheriting an heirloom; marrying a grass widower is like getting second-hand goods that somebody else has been anxious to get rid of. ”

“ For a sense of humor shall cover me as a mackintosh, off which the lemons, that fate casteth at me, shall roll as water. Verily, verily, a woman without a sense of humor is as one that goeth into New Jersey clad in lace hose. ”

“ A girl hides her emotions under a veil of modesty, a spinster under a cloak of cynicism, a wife under a mantle of tact, and a widow under a cloud of mystery—and then women wonder why they are "misunderstood."
Proposing is a sort of acrobatic feat, in which a man must hang on to his nerve with one hand and to the girl with the other. If he lets go of either, he is lost.
In love, as in poker, men play just to play—and then proceed to throw away what has been easily won, without any thought of its value. Thus gamblers so often die in poverty and Lotharios in loneliness. ”

“ IT'S a wise woman that knows how little she knows about her husband.
ONE advantage of a bull-dog over a baby is that you are not haunted by the fear that he will grow up to be just like his father.
THE way to a man's heart is a zig-zag road, leading through his stomach twice around his vanity, across his discretion and straight over his determination not to marry. ”

“ Of course it is easier to marry a widower than a bachelor. A man who has been through the Armageddon of one marriage has no spirit of battle left in him.
When a widow begins curling her hair, again, or a widower begins worrying about his thinness on top, Cupid chuckles and gets out his arrows and Satan smiles behind his hand.
In the matrimonial market a seasoned bachelor is just a shop-worn remnant; a divorcé is a cast-off, second-hand article; but a widower is a treasured heirloom inherited only through death. ”

“ CHAPTER THREE I charge thee, my Daughter, seek not to break a man’s heart; for it is like unto family pride, or a pin, which may be bent, but cannot be broken! Yea, it is as a ball of India rubber which reboundeth easily after the worst shocks.
Lo, the heart of a woman is full of soft spots in which every man she hath once loved occupieth a “cozy corner”. She lingereth tenderly over the grave of a dead love; but a man flingeth a spadeful of earth thereon and proceedeth to dig a new one. ”

“ THERE is nothing so easy for a man as forgetting; he scarcely takes time to throw a shovelful of dirt on the grave of a dead love before he is off pursuing a new one.
TO a man love is only a side dish; to a woman it's the whole feast.
THERE are few men constituted strong enough romantically to stand a daily diet of kisses, without getting sentimental nausea. ”

“ The sweetest part of a love affair is just before the confession when you begin discussing love in the abstract and gazing concretely into one another's eyes.
Marriage is a photogravure made from the glowing illusions which Love has painted on the canvas of the heart.
A woman may have to reach heaven before she tastes supernal joy; but to taste supreme punishment she has only to watch the love-mist die out of a man's eyes.
Nothing frightens a man like a woman's stony silence. ”

“ Beloved, question me not, whence I have learned of man, his secrets. Have I not known one man well? And verily, a woman need know but one man, in order to understand all men; whereas a man may know all women and understand not one of them.
For men are of but one pattern, whereof thou needest but to discover the secret combination; but women are as the Yale lock—no two of them are alike.
Lo! What a paradox is man—even a puzzle which worketh backward!
He mistaketh a sweet scent for a sweet disposition, and a subtile sachet for a subtile mind. ”