I feel as if I could trust my happiness to carry me; as if it had grown out of me like wings. Edith Wharton More Quotes by Edith Wharton More Quotes From Edith Wharton Her failure was a useful preliminary to success. Edith Wharton He had her in his arms, her face like a wet flower at his lips, and all their vain terrors shriveling up like ghosts at sunrise. Edith Wharton sunrise arms flower Everything about her was warm and soft and scented; even the stains of her grief became her as raindrops do the beaten rose. Edith Wharton raindrops grief rose It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country. Edith Wharton stupid country america 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 gold attitude sympathy She would not have put herself out so much to say so little. Edith Wharton littles One of the surprises of her unoccupied state was the discovery that time, when it is left to itself and no definite demands are made on it, cannot be trusted to move at any recognized pace Edith Wharton pace discovery moving The difference is that these young people take it for granted that they're going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn't. Only, I wonder—the thing one's so certain of in advance: can it ever make one's heart beat as wildly? Edith Wharton differences heart people And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them. Edith Wharton happenings real people ...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 amusement intuition want It is the omnipresent rush of water which give the Este Gardens their peculiar character. From the Anio, drawn up the hillside at incalculable cost and labour, a thousand rills gush downward, terrace by terrace, channeling the stone rails of the balusters, leaping from step to step, dripping into mossy conches, flashing in spray from the horns of sea-gods and the jaws of mythical monsters, or forcing themselves in irrepressible overflow down the ivy-matted banks. Edith Wharton garden rain character 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 Something he knew he had missed: the flower of life. But he thought of it now as a thing so unattainable and improbable that to have repined would have been like despairing because one had not drawn the first prize in a lottery. Edith Wharton unattainable flower firsts She gave so many reasons that I've forgotten them all. Edith Wharton reason forgotten Make ones center of life inside ones self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity. Edith Wharton serenity self love The very good people didn't convince me; I felt they'd never been tempted. But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands — and yet you hated the things it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference. Edith Wharton golden hands people And you'll sit beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities. Edith Wharton vision reality looks She felt a stealing sense of fatigue as she walked; the sparkle had died out of her, and the taste of life was stale on her lips. She hardly knew what she had been seeking, or why the failure to find it had so blotted the light from her sky: she was only aware of a vague sense of failure, of an inner isolation deeper than the loneliness about her. Edith Wharton loneliness light sky We shall hurt others less. Isn't it, after all, what you always wanted? Edith Wharton hurt wanted But marriage is one long sacrifice.... Chapter 21, Medora Manson speaking to Newland Archer Edith Wharton archer sacrifice long
