The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!
Edith WhartonI have drunk of the wine of life at last, I have known the thing best worth knowing, I have been warmed through and through, never to grow quite cold again till the end.
Edith WhartonIt was the old New York way...the way people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes", except those who gave rise to them.
Edith WhartonMost timidities have such secret compensations and Miss Bart was discerning enough to know that the inner vanity is generally in proportion to the outer self depreciation.
Edith WhartonI believe I know the only cure, which is to make oneโs center of life inside of oneโs self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenityโto decorate oneโs 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.
Edith Wharton