The American landscape has no foreground and the American mind no background. — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
Don't you ever mind," she asked suddenly, "not being rich enough to buy all the books you want? — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
For what endless years this life will have to go on! He felt, with a kind of horror, his own strong youth… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled dreams of an inarticulate lifetime.” — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime. — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“The motions of her mind were as incalculable as the flit of a bird in the branches” — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
The essence of taste is suitability. Divest the word of its prim and priggish implications, and see how it expresses the mysterious… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
I'm not much interested in travelling scholarships for women - or in fact in scholarships, tout court! - they'd much better stay… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“...he arrived late at the office, perceived that his doing so made no difference whatever to any one, and was filled with… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
His whole future seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
Something he knew he had missed: the flower of life. But he thought of it now as a thing so unattainable and… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
Her mind was an hotel where facts came and went like transient lodgers, without leaving their address behind, and frequently without paying… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“Absent- that was what he was: so absent from everything most densely real and near to those about him that it sometimes… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there's only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
I think sometimes that it is almost a pity to enjoy Italy as much as I do, because the acuteness of my… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“He had built up within himself a kind of sanctuary in which she throned among his secret thoughts and longings. Little by… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
I couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision. That new, that personal, vision is attained only by… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“Little by little it became the scene of his real life, of his only rational activities; thither he brought the books he… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
The real marriage of true minds is for any two people to possess a sense of humor or irony pitched in exactly… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“Suddenly the air was full of that deep clangor of bells which periodically covers Rome with a roof of silver.” — Edith Wharton Copy Share
“Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guile. And he felt himself… — Edith Wharton Copy Share
“High Pasture Come up--come up: in the dim vale below The autumn mist muffles the fading trees, But on this keen hill-pasture, though the… — Edith Wharton Copy Share
“Two ways to be a light for all, is to be a flaming candle or the mirror that reflects it” — Edith Wharton Copy Share
“... no treasure-house of Atreus was ever as rich as a well-stored memory.” — Edith Wharton Copy Share
“...the endless labour of rolling human stupidity up the steep hill of understanding.” — Edith Wharton Copy Share
“he saw his marriage becoming what most of the other marriages about him were: a dull association of material and social interests held together… — Edith Wharton Copy Share
The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend! — Edith Wharton Copy Share
With a shiver of foreboding he saw his marriage becoming what most of the other marriages about him were: a dull association of material… — Edith Wharton Copy Share
A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite probably never… — Edith Wharton Copy Share
There is too much sour grapes for my taste in the present American attitude. The time to denounce the bankers was when we were… — Edith Wharton Copy Share
“But in a few years more perhaps there may be; for, deep within us as the ghost instinct lurks, I seem to see it… — Edith Wharton Copy Share
Dialogue in fiction should be reserved for the culminating moments and regarded as the spray into which the great wave of narrative breaks in… — Edith Wharton Copy Share
“These Americans, under their forthcoming manner, their surface-gush, as some might call it, have an odd reticence about what goes on underneath.” — Edith Wharton Copy Share
