Quote

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.

Edith Wharton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Long
Ways
Usual
Unafraid
Way
Alive
Turning
Incessantly
Things
Small
Curiosity
Insatiable
Happy
Remain
Trail
Bigs
Necessary
Trails
Past
Intellectual
Fought
Change
Habit
Date
Disintegration
Must
Interested
Habits
Ruts

More quotes by Edith Wharton

Image
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.
Edith Wharton
Image
Dialogue in fiction should be reserved for the culminating moments and regarded as the spray into which the great wave of narrative breaks in curving towards the watcher on the shore.
Edith Wharton
Image
Her mind was an hotel where facts came and went like transient lodgers, without leaving their address behind, and frequently without paying for their board.
Edith Wharton
Image
I discovered early that crying makes my nose red, and the knowledge has helped me through several painful episodes.
Edith Wharton
Image
But after a moment a sense of waste and ruin overcame him. There they were, close together and safe and shut in yet so chained to their separate destinies that they might as well been half the world apart.
Edith Wharton
Image
Yes, one gets over things. But there are certain memories one can't bit on.
Edith Wharton
Image
... naturalness is not always consonant with taste.
Edith Wharton
Image
there are lots of ways of answering a letter - and writing doesn't happen to be mine.
Edith Wharton
Image
Inkstands and tea-cups are never as full as when one upsets them.
Edith Wharton
Image
What is one's personality, detached from that of the friends with whom fate happens to have linked one? I cannot think of myself apart from the influence of the two or three greatest friendships of my life, and any account of my own growth must be that of their stimulating and enlightening influence.
Edith Wharton
Image
The visible world is a daily miracle for those who have eyes and ears and I still warm hands thankfully at the old fire, though every year it is fed with the dry wood of more old memories.
Edith Wharton
Image
True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.
Edith Wharton
Image
Poetry and art are the breath of life to her.
Edith Wharton
Image
We ought to be opening a bottle of wine!
Edith Wharton
Image
Her vivid smile was like a light held up to dazzle me.
Edith Wharton
Image
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.
Edith Wharton
Image
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.
Edith Wharton
Image
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.
Edith Wharton
Image
It was too late for happiness - but not too late to be helped by the thought of what I had missed. That is all I haved lived on - don't take it from me now
Edith Wharton
Image
True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision. That new, that personal, vision is attained only by looking long enough at the object represented to make it the writer's own and the mind which would bring this secret gem to fruition must be able to nourish it with an accumulated wealth of knowledge and experience.
Edith Wharton