‘Divorce: The End of an Error.’ 75 Quotes To Help You Push Through the Pain of Ending a Marriage
This too shall pass.
Nobody who gets married ever imagines on their wedding day that the union will one day come to a bitter end. But unfortunately, sometimes marriages just don’t work out and getting a divorce is the best solution for both partners.
When a marriage comes to an end, it can be a scary time of uncertainty, fear, restlessness, loneliness and great sadness. But it can also be an extraordinary time of transformation, as you learn how to stand up for yourself and be independent as you go through the healing process.
If you are struggling with the end of a marriage yourself, here are 75 quotes about divorce that will hopefully make you feel less alone in the journey and remind you that you will see the other side of the dark tunnel one day. Some of the quotes below are the honest, straightforward truth about dissolving a marriage, and others are inspirational words meant to encourage. There are also plenty of witty quips about ditching a no-good partner that will surely bring a wry smile to your face!
75 Divorce Quotes
1. “Divorce isn’t such a tragedy. A tragedy’s staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce.” — Jennifer Weiner, Fly Away Home
2. “How many divorces are caused by the word nothing? I think this would be a very interesting statistic.” ― Sophie Kinsella, Surprise Me
3. “Divorce is the one human tragedy that reduces everything to cash.” — Rita Mae Brown
4. “There are things in my life that are hard to reconcile, like divorce. Sometimes it is very difficult to make sense of how it could possibly happen. Laying blame is so easy. I don’t have time for hate or negativity in my life. There’s no room for it.” — Reese Witherspoon
5. “The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving. I didn't want to destroy anything or anybody. I just wanted to slip quietly out the back door, without causing any fuss or consequences, and then not stop running until I reached Greenland.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
6. “Divorce is hard and painful and complicated, and something you have to grow through.” — Sharon Stone
7. “It’s sad, something coming to an end. It cracks you open in a way—cracks you open to feeling. When you try to avoid the pain, it creates greater pain.” — Jennifer Aniston
8. “And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” — J.K. Rowling, Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination
9. “Heartbreak is a loss. Divorce is a piece of paper.” ― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
10. “I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house.” — Zsa Zsa Gabor
11. “There is no such thing as a ‘broken family.’ Family is family and is not determined by marriage certificates, divorce papers, and adoption documents. Families are made in the heart. The only time family becomes null is when those ties in the heart are cut. If you cut those ties, those people are not your family. If you make those ties, those people are your family. And if you hate those ties, those people will still be your family because whatever you hate will always be with you.” ― C. JoyBell C.
12. “Paying alimony is like feeding hay to a dead horse.” ― Groucho Marx
13. “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping it will transform into a door.” — Coco Chanel
Related: How Long Does it Take to Get a Divorce?
14. “I wanted to turn my divorce into a positive. What if I didn’t blame the other person for anything, and held myself 100 percent accountable? What if I checked my own s— at the door and put my children first? And reminded myself about the things about my ex-husband that I love, and fostered the friendship?” — Gwyneth Paltrow
15. “Taking a thing apart is always faster than putting something together. This is true of everything except marriage.” ― Joe Hill, 20th Century Ghosts
16. “Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” — Toni Morrison, Beloved
17. “Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.” — Deborah Reber
18. “There’s no pain or failure like going through a divorce.” — Jennifer Lopez
19. “In college, I had a course in Latin, and one day the word ‘divorce’ came up. I always figured it came from some root that meant ‘divide.’ In truth, it comes from ‘divertere,’ which means ‘to divert.’ I believe that. All divorce does is divert you, taking you away from everything you thought you knew and everything you thought you wanted and steering you into all kinds of other stuff, like discussions about your mother's girdle and whether she should marry someone else.” — Mitch Albom, For One More Day
20. “A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there’s less of you.” — Margaret Atwood, Surfacing
21. “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.” — Lucille Ball
22. “Do not look for healing at the feet of those who broke you.” — Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey
23. “When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn’t a sign that they 'don’t understand' one another, but a sign that they have, at least, begun to.” — Helen Rowland
24. “If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.” ― Shannon L. Alder
25. “The good thing about getting divorced young—if there is a good thing—is that it makes you realize there’s no schedule in life. It blasts you wide open and frees you to be honest with yourself.” — Olivia Wilde
26. “Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient." — Voltaire
27. “Divorce is expensive. I used to joke they were going to call it ‘all the money,’ but they changed it to ‘alimony.’ It’s ripping your heart out through your wallet.” — Robin Williams
28. “Imagine spreading everything you care about on a blanket and then tossing the whole thing up in the air. The process of divorce is about loading that blanket, throwing it up, watching it all spin, and wondering what stuff will break when it lands.” — Amy Poehler
29. “A divorce is like a controlled explosion. Everyone on the outside is okay.” — Sophie Kinsella, Wedding Night
30. “Years later I would hear my father say the divorce had left him dating his children. That still meant picking us up every Sunday for a matinee and, if he had the money, an early dinner.” — Andre Dubus III
31. “It was a long time in the making, my divorce. One day became less special than the [one before], and pretty soon we ceased all conversation. It is a sad day when you have nothing left to say.” — Ricki Lake
32. “If you made a list of reasons why any couple got married, and another list of the reasons for their divorce, you'd have a hell of a lot of overlapping.” — Mignon McLaughlin
33. “Every couple has the same five arguments in their lifetime, which is really just the one, over and over, until people die or divorce. What it is depends on who you are and what your parents did to you.” — Amy Bloom, White Houses
34. “Divorces are made in heaven.” — Oscar Wilde
Related: The Four Stages of a Breakup
35. “Such silence has an actual sound, the sound of disappearance.” ― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
36. “Divorce isn’t the child’s fault. Don’t say anything unkind about your ex to the child, because you’re really just hurting the child.” — Valerie Bertinelli
37. “Divorce: the end of an error.” — Unknown
38. “The process of discovering with somebody that you love that you don’t work is so painful.” — Kate Hudson
39. “Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.” — Carol Burnett
40. “I didn’t exactly want to get divorced. I didn’t exactly not want to… By then, my marriage had become like the trail in that moment when I realized there was a bull in both directions. I simply made a leap of faith and pushed on in the direction where I’d never been.” — Cheryl Strayed
41. “The difference between a divorce and a legal separation is that a legal separation gives a husband time to hide his money.” — Johnny Carson
42. “Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary bypass.” — Mary Kay Blakely
43. “When people divorce, it’s always such a tragedy. At the same time, if people stay together, it can be even worse.” — Monica Bellucci
44. “The happiest time of anyone’s life is just after the first divorce.” — John Kenneth Galbraith
45. “It takes two to destroy a marriage.” — Margaret Trudeau
46. “I’d marry again if I found a man who had $15 million and would sign over half of it to me before the marriage and guarantee he’d be dead in a year.” — Bette Davis
47. “Divorce is a declaration of independence with only two signers.” — Gerald F. Liberman
48. “Now she knew what divorce really was: Sharing decisions with a person you would run down on the street.” — Judy Blundell
49. “Divorce is probably as painful as death.” — William Shatner
50. “You know why divorces are so expensive? Because they’re worth it.” — Henry Youngman
51. “I learned that it would take more than just the black and white steps of getting divorced, or even finding a lawyer. It would take not just facing my fears. It would take walking into my fears—with each step making me bolder and less ashamed, with each step giving me courage.” — Liza Caldwell
52. “Those who divorce aren't necessarily the most unhappy, just those neatly able to believe their misery is caused by one other person.” — Alain de Botton
53. “For a long time, the fact that I was divorced was the most important thing about me. And now it's not. Now the most important thing about me is that I’m old.” — Nora Ephron
Related: A Step-By-Step Guide to Getting Divorced
54. “Divorce is one of the most financially traumatic things you can go through. Money spent on getting mad or getting even is money wasted.” — Richard Wagner
55. “I never even believed in divorce until after I got married.” — Diane Ford
56. “Divorce is always terrible, but I haven’t met anyone who went through it and isn’t happier now.” — Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
57. “The ceremony took six minutes. The marriage lasted about the same amount of time though we didn't get a divorce for almost a year.” — Hedy Lamarr
58. “Divorce is a 50-50 thing, and it can be a number of petty things that finally drive you out of your mind.” — Lee Radziwill
59. “In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find and continue to find grounds for marriage.” — Robert Anderson
60. “Immediately after a divorce or a breakup, your mind whispers that there are plenty more fish in the sea, while your heart shouts that there is only one: whoever-you-just-divorced-or-broke-up-with.” — Mokokoma Mokhonoana
61. “Divorce is hardest at the beginning, most chaotic in the middle, and best at the end.” — Unknown
62. “Love is grand; divorce is a hundred grand.” — Shinichi Suzuki
63. “Half of all marriages end in divorces—and then there are the really unhappy ones.” — Joan Rivers
64. “Sometimes you’re going to have to let one person go a thousand different times, a thousand different ways, and there’s nothing pathetic or abnormal about that. You are human.” ― Heidi Priebe, This Is Me Letting You Go
65. “When I was divorced, I went through the various stages of grieving: anger, denial, and dancing around with my settlement check.” — Maura Kennedy
66. “Divorce is a time of change. It really rocks the foundation of most people’s lives. When we have our heart broken or our dreams taken away from us, it is a time of growth and change.” — Debbie Ford
67. “Sometimes divorce is better than marriage.” — Sumner Redstone
68. “More divorces start in the bedroom than in any other room of the house.” — Ann Landers
69. “A 99-year-old man is filing for divorce from his 96-year-old wife, making them the world’s oldest divorced couple. It’s got to be weird when a divorce lawyer is fighting for your kids to get custody of you.” ― Jimmy Fallon
70. “The only grounds for divorce in California is marriage.” — Cher
71. “You cannot start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.” ― Michael McMillan
72. “There’s nothing like a family crisis, especially a divorce, to force a person to re-evaluate his life.” — Michael Douglas
73. “Divorce is a fire exit. When a house is burning, it doesn’t matter who set the fire. If there is no fire exit, everyone in the house will be burned!” — Mehmet Murat ildan
74. “In Hollywood, an equitable divorce settlement means each party getting fifty percent of the publicity.” — Lauren Bacall
75. “I used to think that divorce meant failure, but now I see it more as a step along the path of self-realization and growth.” — Alana Stewart
Next, check out these quotes about broken hearts.
