“Two fears alternate in marriage: the one of loneliness and the other of bondage. The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married. For one person who fears being so tied there are three who dread being set free. Yet the love of liberty is a noble passion and one to which most married people secretly aspire—in moments when they are not neurotically dependent—but by then it is too late; the ox does not become a bull, nor the hen a falcon. The fear of loneliness can be overcome, for it springs from weakness; human beings are intended to be free, and to be free is to be lonely, but the fear of bondage is the apprehension of a real danger.”

—Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave