...every literature, in its main lines, reflects the chief characteristics of the people for whom, and about whom, it is written.
Edith WhartonMisfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one.
Edith WhartonIt seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country.
Edith WhartonShe felt a stealing sense of fatigue as she walked; the sparkle had died out of her, and the taste of life was stale on her lips. She hardly knew what she had been seeking, or why the failure to find it had so blotted the light from her sky: she was only aware of a vague sense of failure, of an inner isolation deeper than the loneliness about her.
Edith Wharton