All Edith Wharton Quotes
- Life is either always a tight-rope or a featherbed. Give me a tight-rope. Featherbed
- For what endless years this life will have to go on! He felt, with a kind of horror, his own strong youth and the bounding… Blood
- Is there nowhere in an American house where one may be by one's self? American
- If I could have made the change sooner I daresay I should never have given a thought to the literary delights of Paris or London;… All
- She seemed to melt against him in her terror, and he caught her in his arms, held her fast there, felt her lashes beat his… Arms
- I think I like 'em better like that...divinely dull...just the quiet bearers of their own beauty, like the priestesses in a Panathenaic procession. Bearers
- The visible world is a daily miracle, for those who have eyes and ears. Daily
- Her vivid smile was like a light held up to dazzle me. Dazzle
- She was not accustomed to taste the joys of solitude except in company. Accustomed
- I'm not much interested in travelling scholarships for women - or in fact in scholarships, tout court! - they'd much better stay at home and… Baby
- The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts. Balance
- In a sky of iron the points of the Dipper hung like icicles and Orion flashed his cold fires. Cold
- The other producer of old age is habit: the deathly process of doing the same thing in the same way at the same hour day… Age
- She wondered if, when human souls try to get too near each other, they do not inevitably become mere blurs to each other's vision. Become Mere
- For hours she had lain in a kind of gentle torpor, not unlike that sweet lassitude which masters one in the hush of a midsummer… Bird
- No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity. Frail
- In the rotation of crops there was a recognized season for wild oats; but they were not sown more than once. Crops
- I was never allowed to read the popular American children's books of my day because, as my mother said, the children spoke bad English without… Allowed
- To be able to look life in the face: that's worth living in a garret for, isn't it? Able
- Apart from the pleasure of looking at her and listening to her-of enjoying in her what others less discriminatingly but as liberally appreciated-he had the… Apart
- The essence of taste is suitability. Divest the word of its prim and priggish implications, and see how it expresses the mysterious demand of the… Demand
- My first few weeks in America are always miserable, because the tastes I am cursed with are all of a kind that cannot be gratified… Aesthetic
- Life is the saddest thing there is, next to death. Death
- Some things are best mended by a break. Best
- Think what stupid things the people must have done with their money who say they're 'happier without'. Happier