Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope. Edith Wharton More Quotes by Edith Wharton More Quotes From Edith Wharton Is there nowhere in an American house where one may be by one's self? Edith Wharton reflectionselfhouse It is so easy for a woman to become what the man she loves believes her to be Edith Wharton easymenbelieve Archer had always been inclined to think that chance and circumstance played a small part in shaping people's lots compared with their innate tendency to have things happen to them. Edith Wharton archerpeoplethinking It was harder to drown at sunrise than in darkness. Edith Wharton hardersunrisedarkness To know when to be generous and when firm—that is wisdom. Edith Wharton firmwisdomknows [B]ut he had lived in a world in which, as he said, no one who loved ideas need hunger mentally. Edith Wharton worldideasneeds In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs. Edith Wharton arbitrarydonereal Once more it was borne in on him that marriage was not the safe anchorage he had been taught to think, but a voyage on uncharted seas. Edith Wharton literatureseathinking When people ask for time, it's always for time to say no. Yes has one more letter in it, but it doesn't take half as long to say. Edith Wharton halflongpeople It is almost as stupid to let your clothes betray that you know you are ugly as to have them proclaim that you think you are beautiful. Edith Wharton fashionstupidbeautiful The effect produced by a short story depends almost entirely on its form. Edith Wharton short-storyformstories She threw back her head with a laugh that made her chins ripple like little waves. Edith Wharton wavelittleslaughing In all the arts abundance seems to be one of the surest signs of vocation. Edith Wharton vocationabundanceart Blessed are the pure in heart for they have so many more things to talk about. Edith Wharton pureblessedheart Archer was too intelligent to think that a young woman like Ellen Olenska would necessarily recoil from everything that reminded her of her past. She might believe herself wholly in revolt against it; but what had charmed her in it would still charm her even though it were against her will. Edith Wharton archerintelligentbelieve Some things are best mended by a break. Edith Wharton quittingbreak What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath. Edith Wharton silencecompassiondarkness ... caprice is as ruinous as routine. Edith Wharton capriceroutine The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon. She had accepted this submergence as philosohpically as all her other trials, and now, in extreme old age, was rewarded by presenting to her mirror an almost unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh, in the centre of which the traces of a small face survived as if awaiting excavation. Edith Wharton augustmirrorscities Little as she was addicted to solitude, there had come to be moments when it seemed a welcome escape from the empty noises of her life. Edith Wharton solitudenoiselittles
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