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Their long years together had shown him that it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty, as long as it kept the dignity of duty: lapsing from that, it became a mere battle of ugly appetites.

Edith Wharton

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Edith Wharton
Age: 75 †
Born: 1862
Born: January 24
Died: 1937
Died: August 11
Novelist
Poet
Prosaist
Translator
Writer
New York City
New York
Edith Newbold Jones
Edith Newbold Jones Wharton
Much
Dignity
Long
Mere
Years
Became
Appetites
Battle
Shown
Marriage
Appetite
Duty
Dull
Together
Kept
Matter
Ugly

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I'm not much interested in travelling scholarships for women - or in fact in scholarships, tout court! - they'd much better stay at home and mind the baby. Still less am I interested in scholarships for female Yids.
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True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.
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She was very near hating him now yet the sound of his voice, the way the light fell on his thin, dark hair, the way he sat and moved and wore his clothes—she was conscious that even these trivial things were inwoven with her deepest life.
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Her vivid smile was like a light held up to dazzle me.
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She wondered if, when human souls try to get too near each other, they do not inevitably become mere blurs to each other's vision.
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They belonged to that vast group of human automata who go through life without neglecting to perform a single one of the gestures executed by the surrounding puppets.
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The effect produced by a short story depends almost entirely on its form.
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Habit is necessary. It is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive ... one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in the big things, and happy in small ways.
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The early mist had vanished and the fields lay like a silver shield under the sun. It was one of the days when the glitter of winter shines through a pale haze of spring.
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Yes, you have been away a very long time.' 'Oh, centuries and centuries so long,' she said, 'that I'm sure I'm dead and buried and this dear old place is heaven.
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... there are spines to which the immobility of worship is not a strain.
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It was amusement enough to be with a group of fearless and talkative girls, who said new things in a new language, who were ignorant of tradition and unimpressed by distinctions of rank but it was soon clear that their young hostesses must be treated with the same respect, if not with the same ceremony as English girls of good family.
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Think what stupid things the people must have done with their money who say they're 'happier without'.
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Mothers and daughters are part of each other's consciousness, in different degrees and in a different way, but still with the mutual sense of something which has always been there. A real mother is just a habit of thought to her children.
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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.
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If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.
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One can remain alive ... if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity interested in big things and happy in small ways.
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And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow.
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Then stay with me a little longer,' Madame Olenska said in a low tone, just touching his knee with her plumed fan. It was the lightest touch, but it thrilled him like a caress.
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Since the Americans have ceased to have dyspepsia, they have lost the only thing that gave them any expression.
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