661 Quotes by Edith Wharton

Now, as he reviewed his past, he saw into what a deep rut he had sunk. The worst of doing one’s duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else... There are moments when a man’s imagination, so easily subdued to what it lives in, suddenly rises above its daily level, and surveys the long windings of destiny.

The provocation in her eyes increased his amusement – he had not supposed she would waste her powder on such small game; but perhaps she was only keeping her hand in; or perhaps a girl of her type had no conversation but of the personal kind. At any rate, she was amazingly pretty, and he had asked her to tea and must live up to his obligations.

Courage – that’s the secret! If only people who are in love weren’t always so afraid of risking their happiness by looking it in the eyes.

I have never known a novel that was good enough to be good in spite of its being adapted to the author’s political views.

You can’t imagine the excuses a woman will invent for a man’s not telling her that he loves her – pitiable arguments that she would see through at a glance if any other woman used them!

I can’t love you unless I give you up.

What’s the use – when you will go back?” he broke out, a great hopeless How on earth can I keep you? crying out to her beneath his words.

She knew that Virginia’s survey of the world was limited to people, the clothes they wore, and the carriages they drove in. Her own universe was so crammed to bursting with wonderful sights and sounds that, in spite of her sense of Virginia’s superiority – her beauty, her ease, her confidence – Nan sometimes felt a shamefaced pity for her.

To have you here, you mean-in reach and yet out of reach? To meet you in this way, on the sly? It’s the very reverse of what I want.