Edith Wharton Quotes - Page 10

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...though she had not had the strength to shake off the spell that bound her to him she had lost all spontaneity of feeling, and seemed to herself to be passively awaiting a fate she could not avert.

Edith Wharton

Fate, Feelings, Spontaneity

Edith Wharton (2001). “Summer”, p.138, Electric Book Company

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I wonder why rich people always grow fat I suppose it's because there's nothing to worry them.

Edith Wharton

People, Worry, Wonder

Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.637, Delphi Classics

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... how I understand that love of living, of being in this wonderful, astounding world even if one can look at it only through theprison bars of illness and suffering! Plus je vois, the more I am thrilled by the spectacle.

Edith Wharton

Pain, Joy, Suffering

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I'd almost say it's the worries that make married folks sacred to each other.

Edith Wharton

Worry, Sacred, Married

Edith Wharton (2016). “The Gods Arrive”, p.278, Edith Wharton

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For what endless years this life will have to go on! He felt, with a kind of horror, his own strong youth and the bounding blood in his veins.

Edith Wharton

Strong, Blood, Years

Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.2054, Delphi Classics

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One cares so little for the style in which one's praises are written.

Edith Wharton

Style, Care, Littles

Edith Wharton (2015). “Edith Wharton: Collected Stories Vol. 1 1891-1910”, p.174, Library of America

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... there are spines to which the immobility of worship is not a strain.

Edith Wharton

Worship, Spine, Strain

Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.5433, Delphi Classics

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He bent and laid his lips on her hands, which were cold and lifeless. She drew them away, and he turned to the door, found his coat and hat under the faint gas-light of the hall, and plunged out into the winter night bursting with the belated eloquence of the inarticulate.

Edith Wharton

Winter, Night, Light

Edith Wharton (2015). “The Age of Innocence”, p.97, Booklassic

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And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow.

Edith Wharton

Mother, Exercise, Aunt

Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.1906, Delphi Classics

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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.

Edith Wharton

Vanity, Self, Missing

Edith Wharton (2012). “The House of Mirth”, p.16, Courier Corporation

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If I could have made the change sooner I daresay I should never have given a thought to the literary delights of Paris or London; for life in the country is the only state which has always completely satisfied me, and I had never been allowed to gratify it, even for a few weeks at a time. Now I was to know the joys of six or seven months a year among fields and woods of my own, and the childish ecstasy of that first spring outing at Mamaroneck swept away all restlessness in the deep joy of communion with the earth.

Edith Wharton

Country, Spring, Years

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Beauty (was)a gift which, in the eyes of New York, justified every success, and excused a certain number of failings.

Edith Wharton

New York, Eye, Numbers

Edith Wharton (2014). “Edith Wharton The Dover Reader”, p.222, Courier Corporation

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Charity, till then, had been conscious only of a vague self-disgust and a frightening physical distress; now, of a sudden, there came to her the grave surprise of motherhood.

Edith Wharton

Motherhood, Self, Charity

Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.1841, Delphi Classics

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It was amusement enough to be with a group of fearless and talkative girls, who said new things in a new language, who were ignorant of tradition and unimpressed by distinctions of rank; but it was soon clear that their young hostesses must be treated with the same respect, if not with the same ceremony as English girls of good family.

Edith Wharton

Girl, Fearless, Ignorant

Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.4026, Delphi Classics

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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.

Edith Wharton

Views, Political, Literature

Edith Wharton, Richard Warrington Baldwin Lewis, Nancy Lewis (1988). “The letters of Edith Wharton”, Macmillan Reference USA

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She wanted, passionately and persistently, two things which she believed should subsist together in any well-ordered life: amusement and respectability.

Edith Wharton

Two, Together, Amusement

Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.1608, Delphi Classics

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We shall hurt others less. Isn't it, after all, what you always wanted?

Edith Wharton

Hurt, Wanted

Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.2162, Delphi Classics

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Any rapidly enacted episode. . .should be seen through only one pair of eyes.

Edith Wharton

Eye, Pairs, Episodes

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Wherein lies a poet's claim to originality? That he invents his incidents? No. That he was present when his episodes had their birth? No. That he was first to repeat them? No. None of these things has any value. He confers on them their only originality that has any value, and that is his way of telling them." Mark Twain "...every literature, in its main lines, reflects the chief characteristics of the people for whom, and about whom, it is written.

Edith Wharton

Lying, People, Firsts

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I think I like 'em better like that...divinely dull...just the quiet bearers of their own beauty, like the priestesses in a Panathenaic procession.

Edith Wharton

Thinking, Ems, Dull

Edith Wharton, Marion Mainwaring (1994). “The Buccaneers”, p.115, Penguin

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There is too much sour grapes for my taste in the present American attitude. The time to denounce the bankers was when we were all feeding off their gold plate; not now! At present they have not only my sympathy but my preference. They are the last representatives of our native industries.

Edith Wharton

Sympathy, Attitude, Gold

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Archer reddened to the temples but dared not move or speak: it was as if her words had been some rare butterfly that the least motion might drive off on startled wings, but that might gather a flock if it were left undisturbed.

Edith Wharton

Moving, Archer, Butterfly

Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.2116, Delphi Classics

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...It was one of the great livery-stableman's most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it.

Edith Wharton

Intuition, Amusement, Want

Edith Wharton (2016). “The Age of Innocence: American Literature”, p.2, VM eBooks

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Selden and Lily stood still, accepting the unreality of the scene as a part of their own dream-like sensations. It would not have surprised them to feel a summer breeze on their faces, or to see the lights among the boughs reduplicated in the arch of a starry sky. The strange solitude about them was no stranger than the sweetness of being alone in it together.

Edith Wharton

Summer, Dream, Sky

Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.641, Delphi Classics

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The essence of taste is suitability. Divest the word of its prim and priggish implications, and see how it expresses the mysterious demand of the eye and mind for symmetry, harmony and order.

Edith Wharton

Eye, Order, Essence

Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.4504, Delphi Classics

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Born: January 24, 1862
Died: August 11, 1937
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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