The effect produced by a short story depends almost entirely on its form. — 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
“What novels did you read when you were young, dear? I'm convinced it all turns on that.” — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
The short story, free from the longuers of the novel is also exempt from the novel's conclusiveness--too often forced and false: it… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
... even in houses commonly held to be 'booky' one finds, nine times out of ten, not a library but a book-dump. — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“Real reading is reflex action; the born reader reads as unconsciously as he breathes; and, to carry the analogy a degree farther,… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“The value of books is proportionate to what may be called their plasticity -- their quality of being all things to all… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
...every literature, in its main lines, reflects the chief characteristics of the people for whom, and about whom, it is written. — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
The true felicity of a lover of books is the luxurious turning of page by page, the surrender, not meanly abject, but… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“To read is not a virtue; but to read well is an art, and an art that only the born reader can… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“What is reading, in the last analysis, but an interchange of thought between writer and reader? If the book enters the reader's… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“Mrs. Grancy acquired the charm which makes some women's faces like a book of which the last page is never turned. There… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“The idea that reading is a moral quality has unhappily led many conscientious persons to renounce their innocuous dalliance with light literature… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“Some men," Flamel irresistibly added, "think of books merely as tools, others as tooling. I'm between the two; there are days when… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“I had written short stories that were thought worthy of preservation! Was it the same insignificant I that I had always known?… — 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
