edith wharton

“ There they were, close together and safe and shut in; yet so chained to their separate destinies that they might as well been half the world apart. ”

“ You gave me my first glimpse of a real life, and at the same moment you asked me to go on with a sham one. ”

“ It's you who are telling me; opening my eyes to things I'd looked at so long that I'd ceased to see them. ”

“ I can't love you unless I give you up. ”

“ It frightened him to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes. ”

“ Who's 'they'? Why don't you all get together and be 'they' yourselves? ”

“ Perhaps I might have resisted a great temptation, but the little ones would have pulled me down! ”

“ The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend! ”

“ The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else. ”

“ Before Selden left college he had learned that there are as many different ways of going without money as of spending it. ”