What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath.

Poetry and art are the breath of life to her.

It was easy enough to despise the world, but decidedly difficult to find any other habitable region.

He simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty.

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

There is someone I must say goodbye to. Oh, not you - we are sure to see each other again - but the Lily Bart you knew. I have kept her with me all this time, but now we are going to part, and I have brought her back to you - I am going to leave her here. When I go out presently she will not go with me. I shall like to think that she has stayed with you.

I believe I know the only cure, which is to make one’s center of life inside of one’s self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity—to decorate one’s inner house so richly that one is content there, glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay, but happy all the same when one is inevitably alone.