"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."
"The short story, free from the longuers of the novel is also exempt from the novel's conclusiveness--too often forced and false: it may thus more nearly than the novel approach aesthetic and moral truth."
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Source: Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.2333, Delphi Classics
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"The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts."
"I despair of the Republic! Such dreariness, such whining sallow women, such utter absence of the amenities, such crass food, crass manners, crass landscape!! What a horror it is for a whole nation to be developing without the sense of beauty, and eating bananas for breakfast."
"To visit Morocco is still like turning the pages of some illuminated Persian manuscript all embroidered with bright shapes and subtle lines."
"One can remain alive ... if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity interested in big things and happy in small ways."
"If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time."