661 Quotes by Edith Wharton

Yes, you have been away a very long time. ""Oh, centuries and centuries; so long," she said, "that I’m sure I’m dead and buried, and this dear old place is heaven;

I felt there was no one as kind as you; no one who gave me reasons that I understood for doing what at first seemed so hard and--unnecessary.

...when "such things happened" it was undoubtedly foolish of the man, but somehow always criminal of the woman. All the elderly ladies whom Archer knew regarded any woman who loved imprudently as necessarily unscrupulous and designing, and mere simple-minded man as powerless in her clutches. The only thing to do was to persuade him, as early as possible, to marry a nice girl, and then trust her to look after him.

Проблема с принятыми сгоряча решениями в том, что на другое утро обычно сам не знаешь, к чему всё это…

Here were two people who had penetrated farther than she into the labyrinth of the wedded state, and struggled through some of its thorniest passages; and yet both, one consciously, the other half-unaware, testified to the mysterious fact which was already dawning on her: that the influence of a marriage begun in mutual understanding is too deep not to reassert itself even in the moment of flight and denial.

There was such love as she had dreamed, and she meant to go on believing in it and cherishing the thought that she was worthy of it.

Most timidities have such secret compensations and Miss Bart was discerning enough to know that the inner vanity is generally in proportion to the outer self depreciation.

The people who take society as an escape from work are putting it to its proper use; but when it becomes the thing worked for it distorts all the relations of life.

Through the stillness they heard the church clock striking five."Oh, Ethan, it's time!" she cried.He drew her back to him. "Time for what? You don't suppose I'm going to leave you now?""If I missed my train where'd I go?""Where are you going if you catch it?"She stood silent, her hands lying cold and relaxed in his."What's the good of either of us going anywheres without the other one now?" he said.