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. – Edith Wharton
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. – Edith Wharton
I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. – Edith Wharton
I don’t know if I should care for a man who made life easy; I should want someone who made it interesting. – Edith Wharton
Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one. – Edith Wharton
Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, old age flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death. – Edith Wharton
Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue. – Edith Wharton
After all, one knows one’s weak points so well, that it’s rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others. – Edith Wharton
The worst of doing one’s duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else. – Edith Wharton
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. – Edith Wharton
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. – Edith Wharton
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. – Edith Wharton
Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before. – Edith Wharton
