Quotes By Edith Wharton

Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one.

The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.

There are moments when a man's imagination, so easily subdued to what it lives in, suddenly rises above its daily level and surveys the long windings of destiny.

After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.

Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.

Beware of monotony; it's the mother of all the deadly sins.

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.

Silence may be as variously shaded as speech.

In any really good subject, one has only to probe deep enough to come to tears.

My little dog - a heartbeat at my feet.

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else.

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime.

A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue.

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.

Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope.

I don't know if I should care for a man who made life easy; I should want someone who made it interesting.

Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.

The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

What's the use of making mysteries? It only makes people want to nose 'em out.

Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, old age flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.

True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.

If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time.

The American landscape has no foreground and the American mind no background.

To be able to look life in the face: that's worth living in a garret for, isn't it?

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.