Singles Quotes

“It’s probably not just by chance that I’m alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he’s terribly strong. And if he’s stronger than I, I’m the one who can’t live with him. … I’m neither smart nor stupid, but I don’t think I’m a run-of-the-mill person. I’ve been in business without being a businesswoman, I’ve loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I’ve loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I’ve done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice.”
― Coco Chanel

“I'm single because I was born that way.”
― Mae West

“Marriage is a fine institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.”
― Mae West, The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said

“There are some who want to get married and others who don't. I have never had an impulse to go to the altar. I am a difficult person to lead.”
― Greta Garbo, Greta & Cecil

“The desire to get married is a basic and primal instinct in women. It's followed by another basic and primal instinct: the desire to be single again.”
― Nora Ephron

“If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar-woman and single, far rather than queen and married.”
― Elizabeth I, Collected Works

“At least as a single woman, I had time to pursue my own interests, read voraciously, and travel when opportunity presented.”
― Tasha Alexander, And Only to Deceive

“[I]n the end this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin.”
― Elizabeth I, Collected Works

“If [God] send me no husband, for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening ...”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“[F]rom my years of understanding ... I happily chose this kind of life in which I yet live [i.e., unmarried], which I assure you for my own part hath hitherto best contented myself and I trust hath been most acceptable to God. From the which if either ambition of high estate offered to me in marriage by the pleasure and appointment of my prince ... or if the eschewing of the danger of my enemies or the avoiding of the peril of death ... could have drawn or dissuaded me from this kind of life, I had not now remained in this estate wherein you see me. But so constant have I always continued in this determination ... yet is it most true that at this day I stand free from any other meaning that either I have had in times past or have at this present.”
― Elizabeth I, Collected Works

“(Response to King Erik XIV of Sweden's proposal of marriage:)

"[W]hile we perceive ... the zeal and love of your mind towards us is not diminished, yet in part we are grieved that we cannot gratify your Serene Highness with the same kind of affection. And that indeed does not happen because we doubt in any way of your love and honour, but, as often we have testified both in words and writing, that we have never yet conceived a feeling of that kind of affection towards anyone.

We therefore beg your Serene Highness again and again that you be pleased to set a limit to your love, that it advance not beyond the laws of friendship for the present nor disregard them in the future. ...

We certainly think that if God ever direct our hearts to consideration of marriage we shall never accept or choose any absent husband how powerful and wealthy a Prince soever. But that we are not to give you an answer until we have seen your person is so far from the thing itself that we never even considered such a thing. I have always given both to your brother ... and also to your ambassador likewise the same answer with scarcely any variation of the words, that we do not conceive in our heart to take a husband but highly commend this single life, and hope that your Serene Highness will no longer spend time in waiting for us.”
― Elizabeth I, Collected Works

“There were a lot of these middle-aged single types in the neighborhood, shipwrecked by every kind of catastrophe, but she was one of the few who didn't have children, who lived alone, who was still kinda young. Something must have happened, your mother speculated. In her mind, a woman with no child could be explained only by vast untrammelled calamity.

Maybe she just doesn't like children.

Nobody likes children, your mother assured you. That doesn't mean you don't have them.”
― Junot Díaz, This Is How You Lose Her

“You’ll never get a new ending if you keep starting with the same tired beginning.”
― Lisa Daily, Single-Minded

“Ladies, you have a ton of power if you just understand the fundamental differences between men and women and unaffectedly play by the rules.”
― Julieanne O'Connor, Spelling It Out for Your Man

“Marriage is no barometer of mental health”
― Randy Ross, God Bless Cambodia

“Which crime has the female sex committed to be sentenced to the harsh necessity which consists of being locked up all life either as a prisoner or a slave? I call the nuns prisoners and the married women slaves.”
― Christina Queen of Sweden

“Strays is what a writer I recently read calls those who, for one reason or another, and despite whatever they might have wanted earlier in life, never really become a part of life, not in the way most people do. They may have serious relationships, they may have friends, even a sizable circle, they may spend large portions of their time in the company of others. But they never marry and they never have children. On holidays, they join some family or other group. This goes on year after year, until they finally find it in themselves to admit that they'd really rather just stay home.

But you must see a lot of people like that, I say to the therapist.

Actually, he says, I don't.”
― Sigrid Nunez, The Friend

“My feeling on the subject of sex with a man is - don't give it up unless you're willing to give him up. Not in the beginning. Sex is power!”
― Julieanne O'Connor, Spelling It Out for Your Man

“I say this explicitly, that it is impossible for me to marry. That is the way it is for me. My temper is a mortal enemy to this horrible yoke, which I would not accept, even if I thus would become the ruler of the world.”
― Christina Queen of Sweden

“Some people would have killed themselves and/or someone else if they were single; and some people would not have done that.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“You do not need others to validate your self worth, you are single because you hold yourself high, up above anyone. Dont jump into anything just because you needed to be like everybody else.”
― Amelia.W

“The nights you bury your face in your pillow are the only times you need to feel sad, be very relieved because not every relationship is better than being in a relationship with yourself.”
― Amelia.W

“The motive for marriage must be eternal not just temporal.”
― Ugochi Oritsejolomisan

“You aren't single because there's something wrong with you. Maybe you're single because God wants you to be. He's madly in love with you; maybe he wants you all to himself for a while.”
― Michael Todd

“I truly love my friends but the idea of being a damaged woman if you’re alone.”
― Lana M. Rochel, Looking For Your Tribe: Intellectual Poems

“Dont envy those who found love fast, they probably closed an eye to many things that you wouldnt and when you finally found someone that fits you, you are gonna have a smoother ride than those who rushed.”
― Amelia.W

“The ''good-enough marriage'' is definitely not good enough for today's singles. We're not content to marry someone who happens to live down the street and gets along okay with our parents.”
― Aziz Ansari, Modern Romance

“When one is in love one thinks only of one.”
― Will Advise

“Love comes easy when two souls effortlessly interlock like two puzzle pieces. Obtaining the right combination to interlock those pieces will require careful and thorough search.”
― Maria Lemmo

“I even attended a Christian singles night lecture kind of thing—I was single, it was free, and it was Church. Honestly, that night should be an episode of American Horror Story. The woman leading it was telling us how God had cured her herpes (I didn’t like to mention that herpes just goes into remission)”
― Leslie Jones, Leslie F*cking Jones