Edith Wharton Quotes

Neither one of the couple cared for money, but their disdain of it took the form of always spending a little more than was prudent. ~ The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton The early mist had vanished and the fields lay like a silver shield under the sun. It was one of the days when the glitter of winter shines through a pale haze of spring. ~ Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton In a sky of iron the points of the Dipper hung like icicles and Orion flashed his cold fires. ~ Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton "And I say, if she'd ha' died, Ethan might ha' lived; and the way they are now, I don't see's there's much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard; 'cept that down there they're all quiet, and the women have got to hold their tongues." ~ Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. ~ Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences. ~ The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton His whole future seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever to happen. ~ The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton The persons of their world lived in an atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies, and the fact that he and she understood each other without a word seemed to the young man to bring them nearer than any explanation would have done. ~ The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton That terrifying product of the social system he belonged to and believed in, the young girl who knew nothing and expected everything, looked back at him like a stranger through May Welland's familiar features; and 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. ~ The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton It would presently be his task to take the bandage from this young woman's eyes, and bid her look forth on the world. But how many generations of the women who had gone to her making had descended bandaged to the family vault? He shivered a little, remembering some of the new ideas in his scientific books, and the much-cited instance of the Kentucky cave-fish, which had ceased to develop eyes because they had no use for them. ~ The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton