George Gissing

Do you know, I always have a distinct feeling of pleasure when I hear of married people parting. . . . But it isn't a malicious pleasure; There's nothing personal in it. . . . But marriage in general is such a humbug--you forgive the word.

— George Gissing

It is the duty of every man, who has sufficient means, to maintain a wife. The life of unmarried women is a wretched one; every man who is able ought to save one of them from that fate.

— George Gissing

Thirty-one or fifty-one is much the same for a woman who has made up her mind to live alone and work steadily for a definite object.

— George Gissing