He has never been married, I have. And I tell you in the very happiest marriages not a day passes without a thousand moments of unfaithfulness. You begin by thinking you have one husband. You find you have a dozen. There is the creature you hate and despise and are tied to for life and before breakfast is over the fool says something nice and becomes the man you admire and love. And between these extremes there are a thousand degrees with a different man and woman at each of them. A wife is all women to one man. She is everything that is devilish, the thorn in his side. The jealous termagant, the detective dogging all his movements, the nagger, the scolder, the worrier. He has only to tell her an affectionate lie and she becomes his comfort, his helper. At best his greatest treasure, at worst his troublesome but beloved child. All wives are all these women in one. All husbands, all these men in one. What do the unmarried know of this infinitely dangerous, heart-tearing life of adventure we call marriage.

Epifania Fitzfassenden (played by Maggie Smith in The Millionairess)