Quotes from Edith Wharton

Society is a revolving body which is apt to be judged according to its place in each man's heaven; and at present it was turning its illuminated face to Lily.

Society is a revolving body which is apt to be judged according to its place in each man's heaven; and at present it was turning its illuminated face to Lily.

Why do you do this to me? she cried. Why do you make the things I have chosen seem hateful to me, if you have nothing to give me instead? No, I have nothing to give you instead, he said, sitting up and turning so that he faced her. If I had, it should be yours, you know.

Mr. Sillerton Jackson había devuelto los anteojos a Lawrence Lefferts. Todos los miembros del grupo se volvieron instintivamente a él, esperando escuchar lo que el anciano diría, pues Mr. Jackson era toda una autoridad en familias, así como Lawrence Lefferts lo era en formalidades.

What was the use of being beautiful and attracting attention if one were perpetually doomed to relapse again into the obscure mass of the Uninvited?

But these mysteries, and many others, were closely locked in Mr. Jackson's breast; for not only did his keen sense of honour forbid his repeating anything privately imparted, but he was fully aware that his reputation for discretion increased his opportunities of finding out what he wanted to know.

Hold me, Gerty, hold me, or I shall think of things.

She closed her eyes an instant, and the vacuous routine of the life she had chosen stretched before her like a long white road without dip or turning: it was true she was to roll over it in a carriage instead of trudging it on foot, but sometimes the pedestrian enjoys the diversion of a short cut which is denied to those on wheels.

The light extinguished, they lay still in the darkness, Gerty shrinking to the outer edge of the narrow couch to avoid contact with her bed-fellow. Knowing that Lily disliked to be caressed, she had long ago learned to check her demonstrative impulses toward her friend.

All they wanted now was what she herself wanted only a few short hours ago: to be bowed to when they caught certain people's eyes; to be invited to one more dull house; to be put on the Rector's Executive Committees, and pour tea at the Consuless's "afternoons".

It was characteristic of her that she remembered her failures as keenly as her triumphs, and that the passionate desire to obliterate, to get even with them, was always among the latent incentives of her conduct.

At a stroke she had pricked the van der Luydens and they collapsed. He laughed, and sacrificed them.

What can you expect of a girl who was allowed to wear black satin at her coming out ball.

He had never seen anyone pack as cleverly as Susy: the way she coaxed reluctant things into a trunk was a symbol of the way she fitted discordant facts into her life.

I can't bear to see myself in my own thoughts—I hate ugliness, you know

half the opprobrium of such an act lies in the name attached to it. Call it blackmail and it becomes unthinkable; but explain that it injures no one, and that the rights regained by it were unjustly forfeited, and he must be a formalist indeed who can find no plea in its defence.

New York was inexorable in its condemnation of business irregularities. So far there had been no exception to its tacit rule that those who broke the law of probity must pay; and every one was aware that even Beaufort and Beaufort's wife would be offered up unflinchingly to this principle.

Then they had symbolized what she was gaining, now they stood for what she was giving up. That very afternoon they had seemed full of brilliant qualities; now she saw that they were merely dull in a loud way. Under the glitter of their opportunities she saw the poverty of their achievement.

What right had she to dream the dreams of loveliness?

That Greiner house, now—a typical rung in the social ladder! The man who built it came from a MILIEU where all the dishes are put on the table at once. His facade is a complete architectural meal; if he had omitted a style his friends might have thought the money had given out. Not a bad purchase for Rosedale, though: attracts attention, and awes the Western sight-seer. By and bye he'll get out of that phase, and want something that the crowd will pass and the few pause before.

There are 2 ways of spreading light: to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.

To a torn heart uncomforted by human nearness a room may open almost human arms, and the being to whom no four walls mean more than any others, is, at such hours, expatriate everywhere.

But now he felt as if her blush had set a flaming guard about her.

What is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe.