Edith Wharton's Quotes

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.

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.

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

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

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

My little dog - a heartbeat at my feet.

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

The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Silence may be as variously shaded as speech.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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