Maggie and I celebrated our 43rd wedding anniversary (thank you, thank you) on my "flASHback" writing day, and it seemed bad form to observe the occasion by writing one-liners about Neil Abercrombie.

So let’s take a break from politics and instead test the theory that a woman must possess a great sense of humor to have put up with me all these years. Here’s an ode to marriage taken from my favorite quotations on the subject:

» "I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. First, let her think she’s having her own way. And second, let her have it." – Lyndon B. Johnson

» "The trouble with some women is that they get all

excited about nothing – and then marry him." – Cher

» "My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met." – Rodney Dangerfield

» "When I married Miss Right, I didn’t know that her first name was Always." – Anonymous

» "If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married." – Katharine Hepburn

» "I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury." – Groucho Marx

» "I don’t know if it’s good for baseball, but it sure beats the hell out of rooming with Phil Rizzuto!" – Yogi Berra, on Joe DiMaggio’s marriage to Marilyn Monroe

» "The best way to get most husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they’re too old to do it." – Anne Bancroft

» "I never mind my wife having the last word. In fact, I’m delighted when she gets to it." – Walter Matthau

» "Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was 18, she was 16 and I was 3." – Billie Holiday

» "I don’t think I’ll get married again. I’ll just find a woman I don’t like and give her a house." – Lewis Grizzard

» "Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight." – Phyllis Diller

» "Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier." – H.L. Mencken

» "Your marriage is in trouble if your wife says, ‘You’re only interested in one thing,’ and you can’t remember what it is." – Milton Berle

» "I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life." – Rita Rudner

» "The most happy marriage I can imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman." – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

» "In my house I’m the boss, my wife is just the decision maker." – Woody Allen

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-David Shapiro can be reached at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.