Marriage is too interesting an experiment to be tried only once.

Eva Gabor (1919–1995), the Hungarian-born actress and socialite best known for the television sitcom *Green Acres*, became a pop-culture emblem of glamorous, witty commentary on romance and matrimony. The line is commonly circulated in quotation anthologies and entertainment columns as one of her aphorisms about marriage—an especially pointed joke given that she married multiple times. It reflects the mid-to-late 20th-century celebrity interview culture in which stars were expected to deliver polished one-liners about private life, and Gabor’s public persona often leaned into playful, self-aware humor about relationships and the institution of marriage.

The quip treats marriage not as a single solemn, lifelong commitment but as an “experiment”—a trial whose results might warrant repetition. Its humor comes from reversing conventional moral expectations: instead of learning once and settling down, the speaker implies that the experience is so compelling that repeating it is rational, even desirable. Beneath the joke is a modern, pragmatic view of relationships as contingent and revisable, with personal happiness and curiosity taking precedence over permanence. The line also functions as self-deprecating wit, turning a potentially scandalous biographical fact (multiple marriages) into a charming, controlled narrative.