Many people who advise speakers at weddings - and other social and business occasions, for that matter - advocate that you should use quotations gently and subtly. I agree. Overuse of quotations has a strange way of sounding rather pompous and pseudo-intellectual, which I imagine is something you don’t want to emulate!

In this chapter I’ve gathered together some quotes which I personally like and, if I were to be giving a speech at a wedding, might well be inclined to use. Naturally there are thousands to choose from and I have indicated where you can find more in the Resources section. But hey, start your selection process with these - I think they’re fab.

FAMILY

‘Most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children.’ - Mignon McLaughlin

‘Family isn’t about whose blood you have. It’s about who you care about.’ - Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park)

‘Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.’ - Jane Howard

‘They say that blood is thicker than water. Maybe that’s why we battle our own with more energy and gusto than we would ever expend on strangers.’ - David Assael

‘If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.’ - George Bernard Shaw

‘Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.’ - George Burns

‘Parents are the bones on which children sharpen their teeth.’ - Peter Ustinov

‘If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm.’ - Bruce Barton

‘The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant - and let the air out of the tyres.’ Dorothy Parker

‘I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.’ - Harry S Truman

‘Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.’ - Oscar Wilde

‘Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of.’ - Peter Ustinov

‘Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest (retirement) home.’ - Phyllis Diller

‘The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.’ - Sam Levenson

HAPPINESS AND LOVE

‘Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.’ - Helen Keller

‘The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.’ - Helen Keller

‘Too much of a good thing is wonderful.’ - Mae West

‘Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.’ - Anton Chekhov

‘The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.’ - Carl Jung

‘Love is everything it’s cracked up to be... It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for.’ - Erica Jong

‘To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.’ - Karen Sunde

‘Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.’ - Rabbi Julius Gordon

‘Before I met my husband, I’d never fallen in love, though I’d stepped in it a few times.’ - Rita Rudner

‘One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.’ - Sophocles

‘Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.’ - Christopher Morley

‘I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.’ - J D Salinger

‘We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.’ - Benjamin Disraeli

‘Where there is love there is life.’ - Mahatma Gandhi

‘The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved.’ Victor Hugo

‘Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin - it’s the triumphant twang of a bedspring.’ - S J Perelman

‘We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it, really look after it and nurture it.’ - John Lennon

‘There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.’

- George Sand

MARRIAGE

‘I pay very little regard ... to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.’ - Jane Austen,Mansfield Park

‘A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.’

- Dave Meurer

‘A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.’ – Mignon McLaughlin

‘All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest-never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive,

and brings to a marriage the principle of equal partnership.’

- Ann Landers

‘In marriage, being the right person is as important as finding the right person.’ - Wilbert Donald Gough

‘To keep the fire burning brightly, there’s one easy rule: keep the two logs together, near enough to keep each other warm and far enough apart - about a finger’s breadth - for breathing room. Good fire, good marriage, same rule.’ - Marnie Reed Crowell

‘Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.’ George Bernard Shaw

‘Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half-shut afterwards.’

- Benjamin Franklin

‘There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.’ - Martin Luther

‘The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.’ Robert C Dodds

‘Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together over the years.’

- Simone Signoret

‘Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.’ - Sydney Smith

‘A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.’ - Andre Maurois

‘Actually a marriage in which no quarrelling at all takes place may well be one that is dead or dying from emotional undernourishment. If you care, you probably fight.’ - Flora Davis

‘A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.’ - Andre Maurois

‘A great marriage is not when the “perfect couple” comes together.’ - Dave Meurer

‘Marriage. It’s like a cultural hand-rail. It links folks to the past and guides them to the future.’ - Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

‘That is what marriage really means: helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life.’ - Paul Tournier

‘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 value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.’ - Peter De Vries

MEN/FATHERS

I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds; and I very rarely change it.’ - Margaret Thatcher

‘It is a wise father that knows his own child.’ - William Shakespeare,The Merchant of Venice

‘If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me; I had it from my father.’ - King Henry VIII

‘Only choose in marriage a woman whom you would choose as a friend if she were a man.’ - Joseph Joubert

‘My parents want me to get married. They don’t care who any more, as long as he doesn’t have a pierced ear, that’s all they care about. I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They’ve experienced pain and bought jewellery.’ - Rita Rudner

‘The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.’ - Bertrand Russell

WOMEN/MOTHERS

‘The enthusiasm of a woman’s love is even beyond the biographer’s.’ - Jane Austen

‘... when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.’ - Jane Austen

‘A woman is like a tea bag - you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.’ - Eleanor Roosevelt

‘I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.’ - Margaret Thatcher

‘Sooner or later we all quote our mothers.’ - Bern Williams

‘A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.’ - Dorothy C Fisher

‘My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.’ - Mark Twain

‘God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.’

- Anon

‘Heaven is at the feet of Mothers.’ Arab proverb

‘For a mother is the only person on earth who can divide her love among ten children. And each child still have all her love.’

- Anon

WEDDING FOLKLORE

From the Philippines (with some ideas for comments you could make)

Giving an ‘arinola’ (chamberpot) as a wedding gift is believed to

bring good luck to newlyweds.

Aha, that means they’ll really like the present I got them!

The groom who sits down before his bride does during the wedding ceremony will be a henpecked husband.(Groom), did you sit down at all?

If it rains during the wedding, it means prosperity and happiness for the newlyweds.

Well, if that’s the case this country should be full of deliriously happy married millionaires.

Throwing rice confetti at the newlyweds will bring them prosperity all their life.

Other cultures believe that throwing rice means fertility for the newlyweds, so if this one is true as well they –ll need to be prosperous to pay for all those kids.

The groom must arrive at the church before the bride to avoid

bad luck.

I’ll tell you something if [groom] had arrived after [bride] today

he’d have had more than bad luck. He’d have got both his legs

broken.

Breaking something during the reception brings good luck to the newlyweds.

But that does not mean anyone can start throwing plates or glasses!

The bride should step on the groom’s foot while walking towards the altar if she wants him to agree with her every whim.So that’s why we had to get (bride’s) Jimmy Choo stilettos reinforced with titanium!

An unmarried woman who follows the footsteps (literally) of the newlyweds will marry soon.

Go on then girls, start lining up to follow them around the [dance floor/to the buffet/whatever is appropriate]

The months for marriage

(Original author unknown)

January

Marry when the year is new, he’ll be loving, kind and true.

February

When February birds do mate, you wed nor dread your fate.

March

If you wed when March winds blow, joy and sorrow both you’ll know.

April

Marry in April if you can, joy for maiden and for man.

May

Marry in the month of May, you will romance the day.

June

Marry when June roses grow and over land and sea you’ll go.

July

Those who in July do wed must labour for their daily bread.

August

Whoever wed in August be, many a change is sure to see.

September

Marry in September’s shine so that your life is rich and fine.

October

If in October you do marry, love will come but riches tarry.

November

If you wed in bleak November, only joys will come, remember!

December

When December’s snows fall fast, marry and your love will last.

The colour of the bride’s dress

(Original author unknown)

Marry in white, you’ve chosen him right.

Marry in blue, your love will be true.

Marry in pearl, you’ll live in a whirl.

Marry in brown, you’ll live out of town.

Marry in red, you’d be better off dead.

Marry in yellow, you’re in love with the fellow.

Marry in green, you love being seen.

Marry in pink, your families will link!

Women proposing

There were a number of interesting ways in which marriages were made. In the Middle Ages, in England, although women had far fewer rights than men, they could propose on 29 February - Leap Year Day - because that was not an official day on the calendar. Therefore, no laws applied, and women were free of the restrictions that governed their behaviour the rest of the year. They seized the opportunity to resolve relationships that were taking too long to lead to marriage and to push indecisive suitors into action.

More commonly, especially in rural areas, a girl would peel an apple in a single paring and throw the skin over her shoulder, hoping it would land in the shape of the initial letter of her lover’s name. This practice, apple paring, was carried over to North America by the pioneers, whose young women held group apple paring ceremonies to discover whom they should wed.

Excerpted from Be the best, Best Man and Make a Stunning Speech (How To Books) by Phillip Khan-Panni.