Divorce Quotes

“They feel life is for the taking, and that everyone deserves happiness no matter what the cost. I must remember these tricks if I ever decide to have my soul surgically removed.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“When you think this pain is all you deserve, you are right. You are the only one that can decide how long you will walk in hell.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Someday I will have revenge. I know in advance to keep this to myself, and everyone will be happier. I do understand that I am expected to forgive N and his girlfriend in a timely fashion, and move on to a life of vegetarian cooking and difficult yoga positions and self-realization, and make this so much easier and more pleasant for all concerned.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Surprises, I feel now, are primarily a form of violence.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I have a new mantra, which I chant softly to myself:" Oh My God Oh My God.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“When you have to face up to the fact that marriage to the man you love is really over, that's very tough, sheer agony. In that kind of harrowing situation, I always go away and cut myself off from the world. Also, I sober up immediately when there is genuine bad news in my life; I never face it with alcohol in my brain. I just rented a house in Palm Springs and sat there and just suffered for a couple of weeks. I suffered there until I was strong enough to face it.”
― Ava Gardner, Ava: My Story

“I love you as the mother of my child": the kiss of death.
Mother of His Child: demotion. I am beginning to see this truism: Mothers are not always wives. I have been stripped of a piece of self.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“It´s like watching someone do a triple backflip dismount and land on two feet, solid, arms splayed in the air. I know I could never do it, don´t even know where I would begin to learn, but some people are built for it. He was handcrafted to leave, had practiced on other women since adolescence. I was one of an unnumbered series.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“He announces that lately he keeps losing things." Like your wife and child, "I want to say, but don´t. At fourty, I´ve learned not to say everything clever, not to score every point.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Every broken heart has screamed at one time or another," I want to know why!”
― Shannon L. Alder

“I played possum. I did this, as the possum does, out of fear.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Take me now, God!" I shout to the inky sky. "I´m ready."
"You´re not ready. You´re not even divorced yet," Bunny says. "You cannot die married to that man.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Some of us were brought into this troubled world primarily or only to increase our fathers’ chances of not being left by our mothers, or vice versa.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Use and Misuse of Children

“I travel back in time, falling back into what I know for certain, the historical data I cling to in order to not go mad, not assume I made a suicidal and well-informed error in marrying this man.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I am not ready to think of him as either insane or evil, to consider in full how I could love and have a child with such a person. I am not ready to think about anything, except ways in which this may still be averted.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“How do you know? How best to ensure his nervous breakdown?" I ask.

"Keep going," Christian says. "Just go on as if nothing has happened. We all hate that.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Americans, who make more of marrying for love than any other people, also break up more of their marriages, but the figure reflects not so much the failure of love as the determination of people not to live without it.”
― Morton Hunt

“It´s a little song about abandonment, and it goes something like this....”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“Your partner may have injuries that you can't repair. Your partner may be trapped in a dark room without windows. Your life narrative might bring him more relief than an opiate. Some people make better windows than windows. Your kind words and enlightened perspective is a window of wonders to someone living in pain.”
― Michael Ben Zehabe, Song of Songs: The Book for Daughters

“Everything can change in a heartbeat; it can slip away in an instant. Everything you trust, and treasure, whatever brings you comfort, comes at a terrible cost. Health is temporary; money disappears. Safety is nothing big an illusion.

So when the moment comes, and everything you depend upon changes, or perhaps someone you love disappears, or no longer loves you, must disaster follow? Or will you-somehow-adapt?”
― Margaret Overton

“Men are like wine-some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.”
― Pope John XXIII

“If you never learned to hold onto someone, how could it possibly hurt now to let them go?”
― Shannon L. Alder

“God is great and God is good," Lisa says. "But where are the Apache attack helicopters when you need them?”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I feel incendiary, a wildfire. My spirit licks at the gates of a very elaborate, customized, and distracting emotional Hades.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“LOVE IS A FLOWER

Treat your relationship
As if you are growing
The most beautiful sacred flower.
Keep watering it,
Tend to the roots,
And always make sure
The petals are full of color
And are never curling.
Once you neglect your plant,
It will die,
As will your relationship.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Our ex-wifes always harbour secrets about us that make them irresistable. Until, of course, we remember who we are and what we did and why we are not married anymore.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“She still cared for me, and the best way I could make amends to her was to be happy.

I do have a knack for finding great women.”
― Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

“Sometimes you have to give up on people. Not because you don't care but because they don't. A person's actions will tell you everything you need to know. Love yourself enough to say goodbye to those who don't make time for you or don't know how to love you back. Let go of what hurts, even if it hurts to let go." ~ Jennifer Green”
― Jennifer Green, Winning While Losing: The Upside of Heartbreak

“When love dies and marriage lies in ruins, the first casualty is honest memory, decent, impartial recall of the past. Too inconvenient, too damning of the present. It's the spectre of old happiness at the feast of failure and desolation. So, against that headwind of forgetfulness I want to place my little candle of truth and see how far it throws its light.”
― Ian McEwan, Nutshell

“If you looked round the rooms, you wouldn't think there was anything missing. But it's like one of those Spot the difference cartoons in a puzzle book. The changes are so subtle, yet glaringly obvious once you've seen them. A photo missing here, a cup there. A heart a bit more broken than it was before.”
― Liz Kessler, Read Me Like a Book