A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite… — 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 novels did you read when you were young, dear? I'm convinced it all turns on that.” — 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
“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
... 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
“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
“I believe it IS a vice, almost, to read such a book as the ‘Letters,’” said Mrs. Touchett. “It’s the woman’s soul,… — 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
It would presently be his task to take the bandage from this young woman's eyes, and bid her look forth on the… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“The young man was sincerely but placidly in love. He delighted in the radiant good looks of his betrothed, in her health,… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
Wherein lies a poet's claim to originality? That he invents his incidents? No. That he was present when his episodes had their… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
I was never allowed to read the popular American children's books of my day because, as my mother said, the children spoke… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
Leisure, itself the creation of wealth, is incessantly engaged in transmuting wealth into beauty by secreting the surplus energy which flowers in… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
I have never known a novel that was good enough to be good in spite of its being adapted to the author's… — 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
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
“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 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
“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
Don't you ever mind," she asked suddenly, "not being rich enough to buy all the books you want? — 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
“Suddenly the air was full of that deep clangor of bells which periodically covers Rome with a roof of silver.” — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“Two ways to be a light for all, is to be a flaming candle or the mirror that reflects it” — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“... no treasure-house of Atreus was ever as rich as a well-stored memory.” — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“...the endless labour of rolling human stupidity up the steep hill of understanding.” — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
“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 Image
The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend! — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
