50+ Inspirational Quotes On Divorce, Separation and Moving On

Inspirational Quotes On Divorce

  • “You never really know a man until you have divorced him.”—Zsa Zsa Gabor
  • “Don’t have regrets. You can learn something from every experience.”—Ellen Degeneres
  • “Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.”—Elizabeth Gilbert
  • “There’s no pain or failure like going through a divorce.”—Jennifer Lopez
  • “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”—Eleanor Roosevelt
  • “Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered.”—Michelle Obama
  • “Above all be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”—Nora Ephron
  • “Do not look for healing at the feet of those who broke you.”—Rupi Kaur
  • “Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”—Toni Morrison
  • “Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.”—Carol Burnett
  • “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.”—Lucille Ball
  • “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping it will transform into a door.”—Coco Chanel
  • “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”—Lena Horne
  • “I used to hope that you’d bring me flowers. Now I plant my own.”—Rachel Wolchin
  • “I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me.”—Erica Jong
  • “The process of discovering with somebody that you love that you don’t work is so painful.”—Kate Hudson
  • “Success is its own reward, but failure is a great teacher too, and not to be feared.”—Sonia Sotomayor
  • “Perhaps sometimes reminding ourselves that we do have a choice makes it easier to pick the harder one.”—Eva Melusine Thieme
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”—Maya Angelou
  • “Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.”—Carrie Fisher
  • “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
  • “When we truly care for ourselves, it becomes possible to care about other people. The more alert and sensitive we are to our own needs, the more loving and generous we can be towards others.”—Eda LeShan
  • “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
  • “It always gets worse before it can get better. But it will get better. Like everything else, and like our past struggles, at some point we win, but before that win, there’s always that loss that spurs us on.”—Dolores Huerta
  • “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 worrying what stuff will break when it lands.”—Amy Poehler
  • “I was a high-functioning depressive, seemingly pulled together and buttoned down. But inside deep, I was numb and mute. Now on the other side of divorce, I know that was me fragmented and doing my best to cope. But my body knew.”—Liza Caldwell, SAS for Women Cofounder
  • “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
  • “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, SAS for Women Cofounder
  • “I think that men were allowed to write about their marriages falling apart, but you weren’t quite supposed to if you were a woman. You were just supposed to curl up into a ball and move to Connecticut. But you know, it didn’t really matter because, as I said, I knew what the book was. It’s a funny book, and I was very happy that it sold a lot of copies.”—Nora Ephron on her book, Heartburn
  • “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.

Divorce Quotes and Sayings

  • “Divorce is the sacrament of adultery.”—French Proverbs
  • “It takes two to destroy a marriage.”—Margaret Trudeau
  • “Divorce is a game played by lawyers.”—Cary Grant
  • “Divorce is like death without a burial.”—Dane Cunningham
  • “Divorce is probably as painful as death.”—William Shatner
  • “Love is grand; divorce is a hundred grand.”—Shinichi Suzuki
  • “Divorce is an embarrassing public admission of defeat.”—Tracy Letts
  • “Marriages come and go, but divorces are forever.”—Nora Ephron
  • “Each divorce is the death of a small civilization.”—Pat Conroy
  • “Divorce is the price people play for playing with matches.”—Evan Esar
  • “Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.”—Ambrose Bierce
  • “Divorce is a declaration of independence with only two signers.”—Gerald F. Lieberman
  • “Divorce is the one human tragedy that reduces everything to cash.”—Rita Brown
  • “Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary bypass.”—Mary Kay Blakely
  • “Divorce looks like one of the fastest ways to destroy your wealth.”—Jay Zagorsky
  • “Divorce is one of the most stressful life events anyone goes through.”—Emily Doskow
  • “A divorce is like an amputation: You survive it, but there’s less of you.”—Margaret Atwood
  • “Divorce = Rebirth: forget the past, replan your life, improve your appearance & rejuvenate.”—Rossana Condoleo
  • “Divorce should be the last possible option, rather than something we should be smoothing the passage to.”—Brian Adam
  • “Divorce is the key that opens the strongbox where the bonds of matrimony are kept under wedlock.”—Evan Esar
  • “People get divorced for one reason and one reason only: One or both of them get selfish.”—Pastor Mark Gungor
  • “To get divorced because love has died, is like selling your car because it’s run out of gas.”—Diane Sollee
  • “Divorce is like cutting off a gangrened arm to save the rest of the body.”—David Knox and Caroline Schacht
  • “Divorce in a young-adult novel means what being orphaned meant in a fairy tale: vulnerability, danger, unwanted independence.”—Caitlin Flanagan
  • “Getting divorced just because you don’t love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.”—Zsa Zsa Gabor
  • “When people divorce, it’s always such a tragedy. At the same time, if people stay together it can be even worse.”—Monica Bellucci
  • “There would be fewer divorces if men gave as much loving attention to their wives as they do their cars and jobs.”—Vikrant Parsai
  • “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
  • “Divorce is like an amputation. Sometimes it’s necessary but it should be avoided if at all possible because it brings about a permanent disability.”—Bill Doherty
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “So many persons think divorce a panacea for every ill, who find out, when they try it, that the remedy is worse than the disease.”—Dorothy Dix
  • “I don’t see divorce as a failure. I see it as the end to a story. In a story, everything has an end and a beginning.”—Olga Kurylenko
  • “Being divorced is like being hit by a Mack truck. If you live through it, you start looking very carefully to the right and to the left.”—Jean Kerr
  • “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 last, begun to.”—Helen Rowland
  • “Losing a mate to death is devastating but it’s not a personal attack like divorce. When somebody you love stops loving you and walks away, it’s an insult beyond comparison.”—Sue Merrell
  • “I’ve gone through a really hard divorce, and anyone who has gone through a divorce will speak about how hard the journey is from start to finish. It’s a life-uprooting time.”—Christina Aguilera
  • “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
  • “Divorce is a failed challenge, which leads to a broken life. It is a socially transmittable disease that can transfer from one generation to another, and it is spreading fast.”—Sia F. Dean
  • “People that go through what I went through and people going through divorce, it’s really a difficulty process; it’s heartbreaking and it hurts really badly. It can really mess with your head.”—David Arquette
  • “For some reason, we see divorce as a signal of failure, despite the fact that each of us has a right, and an obligation, to rectify any other mistake we make in life.”—Joyce Brothers
  • “People do not get married planning to divorce. Divorce is the result of a lack of preparation for marriage and the failure to learn the skills of working together as teammates in an intimate relationship.”—Gary Chapman
  • “Divorce can sometimes be for the better. You may end up with happier parents, and you will definitely learn a lot about yourself! And that’s the whole point of growing up. So if you think about it, there are reasons to be happy about this experience, if you can learn and grow from it.”—Zoe Stern
  • “Divorce is open-heart surgery, emotionally. Some people are not willing to give it enough time, and their expectations for recovery are too fast. When you get up and go faster than you’re supposed to and you push your healing cycle too quickly, you have to do it over again and you get a relapse.”—Steve Grissom and Kathy Leonard
  • “The remedy for most marital stress is not in divorce. It is in repentance and forgiveness, in sincere expressions of charity and service. It is not in separation. It is in simple integrity that leads a man and a woman to square up their shoulders and meet their obligations. It is found in the Golden Rule, a time-honored principle that should first and foremost find expression in marriage.”—Gordon B. Hinckle
  • “Going through a divorce is like having every aspect of your life played back. Anything you have mishandled or regretted is talked about by everyone as they try to figure out who was right and who the innocent party really is. The comfort you once experienced is gone completely. There are many choices for new comfort, but most of them have no value except introducing new addictions or pounds of fat or guilt.”—Kandace Cooper
  • “Every divorce is the result of selfishness on the part of one or the other or both parties to a marriage contract. Someone is thinking of self-comforts, conveniences, freedoms, luxuries, or ease. Sometimes the ceaseless pin pricking of an unhappy, discontented, and selfish spouse can finally add up to serious physical violence. Sometimes people are goaded to the point where they erringly feel justified in doing the things that are so wrong. Nothing of course justifies sin.”—Spencer W. Kimball
  • “If you have been divorced, you know it hurts – especially if your marriage had lasted many years. Whatever the circumstances of your relationship, and whatever the nature of its ending, there is always grief and regret – perhaps regret over the ending, or perhaps regret over not ending the relationship sooner – or perhaps both. Nonetheless, move past the grief and regret. No matter how painful, divorce, like all endings, opens the door to new beginnings.”—Jonathan Lockwood Huie