Everything about her was warm and soft and scented; even the stains of her grief became her as raindrops do the beaten rose.

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

..but it seemed to him that the tie between husband and wife, if breakable in prosperity, should be indissoluble in misfortune.

You thought I was a lovelorn mistress; and I was only an expensive prostitute.

There is too much sour grapes for my taste in the present American attitude. The time to denounce the bankers was when we were all feeding off their gold plate; not now! At present they have not only my sympathy but my preference. They are the last representatives of our native industries.

He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime.

It 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.