Helen Rowland

“ 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. ”

“ 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."
[46]
ALL men are the same after ten years of matrimony ”

“ NOWADAYS love is a matter of chance, matrimony a matter of money and divorce a matter of course. ”

“ POKER and love are both games of bluff.
A MAN has so many more temptations than a woman—because he knows where to go and find them.
A MAN will sit on the edge of the bed, holding one shoe in his hand and gazing into space for half an hour, and then send the cook into hysterics and the waitress into nervous prostration because he has only ten minutes left in which to eat his breakfast. ”

“ NO MAN refuses to give a good wife all the credit she deserves; but some of them are rather shy about giving her cash to the same amount.
A WOMAN on her summer vacation soon discovers that a husband is not "a man of letters," but a man of off-hand notes and telegrams.
A LOVER looks at women through rose-colored spectacles, an old bachelor through blue glasses, and a married man—through a microscope.
[81]
A MAN always feels deeply injured when his wife refuses to believe the story that he has worked at all the way up in the cab to make sound interesting and perfectly plausible. ”

“ ONE man's folly is often another man's wife.
THE woman who makes a man perfectly happy is the one who cares just enough to respond when he is interested and not enough to be interested when he doesn't respond.
MARRIAGE is like twirling a baton, turning a handspring or eating with chopsticks ”

“ BY a man's vows of devotion ye shall not know him; the lover who promises a girl a life of roses is usually the one who allows her to pick off all the thorns for herself.
MAN is such a paradox that a woman is forced to make him believe that she doesn't take him seriously—or she won't get a chance to take him at all. ”

“ THAT sad, patient smile one sees on the face of a married woman may not come so much from heart-hunger as from a daily effort to listen to her husband's latest joke at the same time that she pacifies the cook, soothes the baby and looks for his lost collar button. ”

“ LOVE is a sort of club sandwich affair, composed of large slices of selfishness, seasoned with passion, spiced with jealousy and covered with thin layers of sentiment.
A MAN may admire a superior woman, but when it comes to marrying he prefers a goose who will cackle at his jokes to an owl who is likely to hoot at them.
A MAN always remembers a girl's first kiss the longest—because usually that's the only one he had any trouble in getting.
TO keep a man's interest at high pressure deal yourself out to him in homœopathic doses; one only wants more of anything that one cannot get enough of. ”

“ IN marriage, the love-light so often goes out as soon as the gas bills begin to come in.
[4]
THE only way to be happy with a husband is to learn to be happy without him most of the time.
LOVE is just the shine on the jewel of matrimony; but, after all, the shine on a jewel is the whole thing.
A MAN firmly believes that, if he can only keep his wife in the straight and narrow path, he can go out and zig-zag all over the downward one without falling from grace.
A GIRL is never so surprised when a man proposes to her as he is. ”

“ AS long as Satan can make a woman believe that it is possible to reform a rake and make a roué over into a doting husband the ladies will keep his majesty's business running.
IF anything could make a woman willing to exchange her curves for a little muscle it would be that maddening, "There, there, now!" attitude with which the average man greets her righteous wrath.
MANY a man would be dumbfounded if he should discover that the ideal in his wife's heart didn't have a double chin, a bald spot and turned-in toes just like himself. ”

“ IT IS always a surprise to a woman when her husband sues for $200,000 for the alienation of her affections, which he never seemed to consider worth two cents.
MATRIMONY is a revolving door, round which husband and wife follow one another without ever meeting on the same side of any question.
MARRYING an old bachelor is like buying second-hand furniture.
[14]
LOVE always must end sooner or later—usually sooner than the girl expected and later than the man intended. ”

“ OF course men admire a circumspect woman above all things, but they seldom invite her out to supper.
NOTHING bores a man worse than the devotion of the girl before the last.
IT'S rather sad to see how easily a man gets "that tired feeling" after a love affair has become a bit stale.
A MAN may send you a gold-handled umbrella with your monogram on it in diamonds and mean nothing but good-fellowship, but if he offers to put it up and carry it over you for fear the mist will spoil your feathers you may be sure he's in love. ”

“ WHEN a woman says "There are no secrets between my husband and me," it is a sure sign that she hasn't found out any of his.
THERE are dozens of systems for winning at roulette, but the only system for winning at love is systematic flattery.
LOVE in a cottage doesn't seem so appalling when you come to consider that there is such a thing as matrimony in a modern flat.
[115]
NO MAN is a really artistic lover who hasn't enough dramatic instinct to forget all other women while he is making love to one. ”

“ ALL this talk about trial marriages seems so superfluous—considering that marriage has always been a trial.
A MAN'S sense of honor is so peculiar that it gets out of working condition the minute he comes near a pretty woman.
MAN—as far as his opinions and emotions go—is the noblest work of woman.
A KISS and its thrills are soon parted—after the honeymoon.
EVERY woman is born an actress; and actresses are twice as attractive to men as other women because they are twice women. ”

“ BEFORE marriage it fills a man with tenderness to have a girl slip her hand confidingly into his coat pocket; but after marriage somehow it fills him only with distrust.
IT is one of the mockeries of matrimony that the moment two people begin to be awfully courteous to one another round the house it is a sign they are awfully mad.
A MAN'S idea of being perfectly noble and honest with a woman is to be able to make her think he loves her without indulging in any incriminating statements to that effect. ”

“ CALL a woman weak-minded and a man will wonder if you aren't jealous of her; but call her strong-minded and he will take your word without stopping to investigate.
THE wife who insists on being useful instead of concentrating on being beautiful and amusing will soon find herself relegated to the shelf like a medicine bottle, instead of being kept near at hand like a wine bottle. ”

“ THE woman who insists on playing Solitaire in conversation is likely to end by playing Old Maid.
FROM the number of virtues and accomplishments that a man expects to find in one wife, you'd fancy he was marrying a harem.
DON'T worry for fear you may freeze a man's love out; the colder the wind you blow upon it, the higher you fan the flames. ”

“ A MAN'S sweethearts are like his cigars; he has many of each of them, loves each one as tenderly as the preceding, and appreciates each according to its expensiveness.
A HUSBAND can always find fault with his wife, but, then, even archangels could pick flaws in one another if they had to drink coffee at the same table every morning.
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MATRIMONY is, like the weather, mighty uncertain, and the happiest people are those who are neither looking for storms nor banking on sunshine, but are just willing to go along sensibly and take what comes. ”

“ THE kind of woman who holds a man's devotion forever is like a silky, self-satisfied Angora cat who takes her petting as a matter of course, never returns it, and never gets on his nerve by asking for more. ”

“ WHEN a man makes a woman his wife it's the highest compliment he can pay her—and usually it's the last. ”

“ MENTAL science never cured a man of love-sickness, because in the average man's love mentality plays so small a part.
A MARRIED woman has an awfully small chance of learning anything about her husband's English vocabulary, for the simple reason that he never addresses her except in baby talk or swear words.
A $30-A-WEEK clerk always feels it incumbent to take a girl to the theatre in a taxicab. It requires a bona-fide millionaire to drag her about in a five-cent street car with perfect éclat and no apologies. ”

“ A MAN likes a wife who appeals to his lighter side, but the average man has so many lighter sides that no one woman could appeal to them all; and even if she could there is always his darker side and a peroxide blonde waiting around to appeal to it.
A WOMAN'S idea in marrying a man is that she may save his soul; his idea in marrying her is that she may save his socks and his digestion. ”

“ IT isn't the things a man says that proves he loves you, but the things he tries to say and can't—the things that choke right up in his throat and leave him sitting dumb and miserable on your parlor divan.
PHYSICIANS say the heart is an organ; but by the way some men manage to grind out the same old love songs over and over again it would seem to be more like a street piano. ”

“ TO fascinate an intelligent man pretend to be silly; to attract a good man pretend to be naughty; to win a fool pretend to be clever; and to charm the devil pretend to be a saint.
A GIRL loves to spell her soul out on paper, but a man can't see the use of writing a love-letter when he can compress his whole passion into one paragraph on a post card. ”

“ A MAN seldom discovers that he hasn't married his affinity until his wife begins to get crow's-feet around the eyes.
IF YOU want to be really popular pat a bald man on the head; call an old man "naughty boy"; treat a young man with timid respect; cling to a little man like the vine to the mighty oak, and tell a fat man how you love to dance with him.
THE man who declares a friend innocent even when he knows he is guilty, and defends a woman's reputation even when it is scarcely worth defending, is not written down a liar by the recording angel. ”

“ THOSE who have tried matrimony, like those who have finished with the morning paper, always say, "There's nothing in it;" but somehow that never keeps the rest of us from wanting to see for ourselves. ”

“ THE only contract a man considers so unimportant that he will sign it without first reading it over is the marriage contract.
A WOMAN whose husband gives her cause for jealousy should not shed tears; she should shed the husband.
A MAN is never really old until his rosy hopes have turned gray and he has begun to get wrinkles in his disposition.
A GOOD woman is known by what she does; a good man by what he doesn't.
RICH men and their wives are soon parted; matrimony plus money has such a way of developing into alimony.
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ONE way to a man's heart is through your father's pocketbook. ”

“ FAILING to be "there" when a man wants her, is the greatest sin a woman can commit—except being there when doesn't want her.
[48]
THE best men always seem to get the worst wives and vice versa; that's Nature's little way of spreading the virtues and the vices around equally, like the jam and the butter on the bread.
A MAN'S idea of being "master" in his own house is asserting his right to put his muddy feet on the best divan and his pipe ashes on the parlor mantelpiece. ”

“ IT isn't the big vague vows he makes at the altar which a man finds it so difficult to keep or to get around, but the little foolish promises he made before he ever got there.
IT IS as foolish to try to reform a man after he has lost his front hair as to try to tame a lion after he has gotten his second teeth. ”

“ A MARRIED woman is always impressionable, because she has become so used to a total abstinence from flattery that a compliment from a man goes to her head like wine to the head of the teetotaler.
REFINEMENT is what makes a man turn on his heel and go off to the club instead of staying at home and having a good, old-fashioned row with his wife. ”

“ THERE never was a man big and strong enough to get out his clean shirt and collar and fix the water for his bath.
IT'S when the game becomes a trifle stale that a man begins to feel conscientious qualms about flirting with a woman. ”