About this quote

People often stay with someone because the little strange things fit together. Notice the quirks you can live with and the ones that grate — those differences tell you more than grand declarations. If you want a steady partnership, stop hiding odd habits and try sharing one small quirk with a new person. See how they react; laugh, ask about it, or calmly carry on — that response tells you whether you’ve found something real.

When to use it

• After we moved in together and he put a disco ball above the kitchen sink, I laughed and said the quote to mean, 'We're okay with each other's weird.'
• At a team retro when someone presented ideas using sock puppets, I dropped the line into the channel to say this group actually gets odd ideas.
• Late-night parenting, when my partner started singing a ridiculous lullaby and the baby joined in — I whispered the quote and felt we were a unit.
• During a weekend run when a teammate turned up in a bright cape and everyone joined the joke, I nudged a friend and mouthed the quote: we fit.