{"quotes":[{"text":"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.","author":"Junot Díaz","tags":["calamity","childlessness","children","singles","women"],"id":53428,"author_id":"Junot+D%C3%ADaz"},{"text":"(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.","author":"Elizabeth I","tags":["bachelorhood","empowerment","freedom","friendship","independence","love","marriage","marriage-proposal","matrimony","queens","refusal","self-determination","singles","women"],"id":69404,"author_id":"Elizabeth+I"},{"text":"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.","author":"Greta Garbo","tags":["bachelorhood","empowerment","equality","freedom","independence","marriage","matrimony","preference","self-determination","self-reliance","self-sufficiency","singles","submission","women"],"id":76830,"author_id":"Greta+Garbo"},{"text":"I climb mountains, while you keep sinking in sand.","author":"Jenna Karel","tags":["done","expectations","failing","letting it go","singles","trying"],"id":79125,"author_id":"Jenna+Karel"},{"text":"[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.","author":"Elizabeth I","tags":["bachelorhood","choice","contentment","dignity","empowerment","freedom","independence","marriage","matrimony","queens","self-determination","singles","women"],"id":85864,"author_id":"Elizabeth+I"},{"text":"[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.","author":"Elizabeth I","tags":["bachelorhood","dignity","freedom","good-governance","government","independence","marriage","matrimony","mementos","memory","queens","reign","self-determination","singles","sufficiency","virginity","women"],"id":99849,"author_id":"Elizabeth+I"},{"text":"At least as a single woman, I had time to pursue my own interests, read voraciously, and travel when opportunity presented.","author":"Tasha Alexander","tags":["reading","singles","spinsters","travel"],"id":103208,"author_id":"Tasha+Alexander"},{"text":"Don't ever think that you're a single in total freedom,but think of combating the forces of lust.","author":"Michael Bassey Johnson","tags":["discipline","lust","morale","singles"],"id":143488,"author_id":"Michael+Bassey+Johnson"},{"text":"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.","author":"Aziz Ansari","tags":["marriage","singles"],"id":170310,"author_id":"Aziz+Ansari"},{"text":"When one is in love one thinks only of one.","author":"Will Advise","tags":["advice","love","singles","singularity"],"id":177789,"author_id":"Will+Advise"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":29,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}