If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time. Edith Wharton More Quotes by Edith Wharton More Quotes From Edith Wharton Do you remember what you said to me once? That you could help me only by loving me? Well-you did love me for a moment; and it helped me. It has always helped me. Edith Wharton momentshelpingremember 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 sunrisearmsflower 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 raindropsgriefrose It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country. Edith Wharton stupidcountryamerica 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 goldattitudesympathy 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 pacediscoverymoving 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 differencesheartpeople And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them. Edith Wharton happeningsrealpeople ...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 amusementintuitionwant 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 gardenraincharacter 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 summerdreamsky 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 unattainableflowerfirsts She gave so many reasons that I've forgotten them all. Edith Wharton reasonforgotten Make ones center of life inside ones self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity. Edith Wharton serenityselflove 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 goldenhandspeople And you'll sit beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities. Edith Wharton visionrealitylooks 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 lonelinesslightsky We shall hurt others less. Isn't it, after all, what you always wanted? Edith Wharton hurtwanted
