How we cite our quotes: Chapter.Paragraph
Quote #4
[My parents] have no harsh edges with each other, no spiny conflicts, they ride through life like conjoined jellyfish—expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each other's spaces liquidly. Making it look easy, the soul mate thing. People say children from broken homes have it hard, but the children of charmed marriages have their own particular challenges. (4.12)
One of the reasons Amy feels like a failure in her pre-Nick life is because although she's Amazing Amy and everything is supposed to go perfectly and smoothly for her, she still hasn't found a soul mate. As a result, the loneliness she felt as a child has now transformed into a different kind of wound—she not only feels the absence of a husband, but also feels like a failure because what happened for her parents has not happened for her.
Quote #5
The older women keep swirling around me, telling me how Maureen has always said what a wonderful couple Nick and I are and she is right, we are clearly made for each other.
I prefer these well-meant clichés to the talk we heard before we got married. Marriage is compromise and hard work, and then more hard work and compromise. And then work. Abandon all hope, ye who enter. (16.22-23)
If you're married, you know that there's a lot of truth to this—people throw clichés around in an attempt to give advice, but end up coming off as somewhat smug. After all, they've survived that challenging, young period of marriage, and have so much wisdom to offer. Understandably, Amy's pretty annoyed by Maureen's friends and their attempt to make small talk about inevitable struggles in relationships—especially when Amy's in the middle of them herself.
Quote #6
"It's not an easy thing, pairing yourself off with someone forever. It's an admirable thing, and I'm glad you're both doing it, but boy-oh-girl-oh, there will be days you wish you'd never done it. And those will be the good times, when it's only days of regret and not months." (16.25)
Maureen's commentary on marriage obviously owes a lot to her own relationship's failure. It tells us that she loved Bill when she married him, and she really tried, but regret was always present in both small and large doses.