The real alchemy consists in being able to turn gold back again into something else; and that's the secret that most of your friends have lost.

There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there's only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there's no reason why you shouldn't have a fairly good time.

There's nothing grimmer than the tragedy that wears a comic mask.

But marriage is one long sacrifice.... Chapter 21, Medora Manson speaking to Newland Archer

Nothing is more perplexing to a man than the mental process of a woman who reasons her emotions.

I think sometimes that it is almost a pity to enjoy Italy as much as I do, because the acuteness of my sensations makes them rather exhausting; but when I see the stupid Italians I have met here, completely insensitive to their surroundings, and ignorant of the treasures of art and history among which they have grown up, I begin to think it is better to be an American, and bring to it all a mind and eye unblunted by custom.

The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.