What are some good SF/Fantasy wedding quotes?
April 6, 2010 6:54 PM   Subscribe

What are some good light-hearted quotations for a wedding reading, preferably from fantasy/SF/young adult books? This question had some good SF ones but we're also after fantasy. Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Gaiman, Bujold are some examples of authors we're looking at
posted by xiw to Writing & Language (8 answers total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
"Love" is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own... Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy.
Robert A. Heinlein

posted by b33j at 7:04 PM on April 6, 2010 [2 favorites]


Maybe not fantasy enough, but I thought of this quote from Everything Is Illuminated:

"The young couple first married on August 5, 1744, when Joseph was eight and Sarah six, and first ended their marriage six days later when Joseph refused to believe, to Sarah's frustration, that the stars were silver nails in the sky, pinning up the black nightscape. They remarried four days later, when Joseph left a note under the door of Sarah's parents' house: I have considered everything you told me, and I do believe that the stars are silver nails.

They ended their marriage again a year later, when Joseph was nine and Sarah seven, over a quarrel about the nature of the bottom of the river bed. A week later, they were remarried, including this time in their vows that they should love each other until death, regardless of the existence of the riverbed, the temperature of the river bed's bottom (should it exist), and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed.

They ended their marriage one hundred and twenty times throughout their lives and each time remarried with a longer list of vows. They were sixty and fifty-eight at their last marriage, only three weeks before Sarah died of heart failure and Joseph drowned himself in the bath. Their marriage contract still hangs over the door of the house they on-and-off shared-nailed to the top post and brushing against the welcome mat:

"It is with everlasting devotion that we, Joseph and Sarah L, reunite in the indestructible union of matrimony, promising love until death, with the understanding that the stars are silver nails in the sky, regardless of the existence of the bottom of the river, the temperature of this bottom (should it exist) and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed, overlooking what may or may not have been accidental grape juice spills, agreeing to forget that Joseph played sticks and balls with his friends when he promised he would help Sarah thread the needle for the quilt she was sewing, and that Sarah was supposed to give the quilt to Joseph, not his buddy, ignoring the simple fact that Joseph snores like a pig, and that Sarah is no great treat to sleep with either, letting slide certain tendencies of both parties to look too long at members of the opposite sex, not making a fuss over why Joseph is such a slob, leaving his clothes wherever he feels like taking them off, expecting Sarah to pick them up, clean them, and put them in their proper place as he should have, or why Sarah has to be such a pain about the smallest things, such as which way the toilet paper unrolls, or when dinner is five minutes later than she was planning, because, let's face it, it's Joseph who's putting that paper on the roll and dinner on the table, disregarding whether the beet is a better vegetable than the cabbage, putting aside the problems of being fat-headed and chronically unreasonable, trying to erase the memory of a long since expired rose bush that a certain someone was supposed to remember to water when his wife was visiting family, accepting the compromise of the way we have been, the way we are, and the way we will likely be. May we live together in unwavering love and good health. Amen."


Quotes from Jeanette Winterson's The Passion also came to mind, but again, I'm not sure that's quite the right vein.
posted by questionsandanchors at 7:32 PM on April 6, 2010 [8 favorites]


Regarding b33j's quote from Heinlein: I read that in eighth grade and it stuck with me. The first part, that is, about it being a condition in which the happiness of another is essential to your own. That was over a decade ago, and I still remember it. For what that's worth.

From Le Guin, not sure where, admittedly not especially lightweight:

"Love does not just sit there, like a stone; it had to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new."

...I'm a little biased toward this next one as it's a personal favorite, but if it's mixed in with a number of other quotes, it might work. From Douglas Adams, no less.

"Don't Panic."

Not quite wedding-specific, but still, I think, important.
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:37 PM on April 6, 2010 [6 favorites]


"A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores." Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant.

"Granny Weatherwax had a primal snore... It had had years in a lonely bedroom to perfect the knark, the graaah and the gnoc, gnoc, gnoc, unimpeded by the nudges, jabs and occasional attempts at murder that usually moderate the snore impulse over time." Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum.

"But you read a lot of books, I'm thinking. Hard to have faith, ain't it, when you've read too many books?" Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum.

"[Spoken by Commander Vimes' wife, Sybil] 'Captain Carrot, you are to make sure he eats the apple and the banana. Dr Lawn says he must eat at least five pieces of fruit or vegetable every day!'
Vimes stared woodenly at Carrot and Sally, trying to project the warning that the first officer to crack a smile or even mention this to anyone, ever, ever, ever, would have a very hard time of it indeed.
'And, incidentally, tomato ketchup is not a vegetable,' Sybil added. 'Not even the dried stuff round the top of the bottle.' " Terry Pratchett, Thud!
posted by Susurration at 7:51 PM on April 6, 2010


Not fantasy, but don't forget EM Forster (Howards End):
"Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die."
posted by Susurration at 7:55 PM on April 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


Tolkien isn't Gaiman, but something from The Song of Luthien?
posted by rodgerd at 2:11 AM on April 7, 2010 [1 favorite]


From Doctor Who and not particular to weddings, but still really hopefully and 'we're in this together-ish':

"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do."
posted by chiefthe at 4:39 AM on April 7, 2010


"You are the most incredibly domineering person I think I’ve ever met.”
“You’re supposed to fight back,” he explained. “I rely on . . . my partner fighting back. Otherwise, I couldn’t relax and be myself.”

Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance.
posted by willbaude at 6:51 AM on April 7, 2010


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