661 Quotes by Edith Wharton

But marriage is one long sacrifice.... Chapter 21, Medora Manson speaking to Newland Archer

Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.

Ah, good conversation - there's nothing like it, is there? The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

His whole future seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever to happen.

When people ask for time, it's always for time to say no. Yes has one more letter in it, but it doesn't take half as long to say.

Yes, the Gorgon has dried your tears.' Well, she has opened my eyes too; it's a delusion to say she blinds people. What she does is the contrary-she fastens their eyelids open, so they're never again in the blessed darkness.

He knelt by the bed and bent over her, draining their last moment to its lees; and in the silence there passed between them the word which made all clear.

The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.

In our hurried world too little value is attached to the part of the connoisseur and dilettante.