Edith Wharton Quotes

“I went on steadily trying to 'find out how to'; but I wrote two or three novels without feeling that I had made much progress. It was not until I wrote "Ethan Frome" that I suddenly felt the artisan's full control of his implements. When "Ethan Frome" first appeared I was severely criticized by the reviewers for what was considered the clumsy structure of the tale. I had pondered long on this structure, had felt its peculiar difficulties, and possible awkwardness, but could think of no alternative which would serve as well in the given case: and though I am far from thinking "Ethan Frome" my best novel, and am bored and even exasperated when I am told that it is, I am still sure that its structure is not its weak point.”

“The return to reality was as painful as the return to consciousness after taking an anesthetic”

“The motions of her mind were as incalculable as the flit of a bird in the branches”

“I don't know of a single park without serious environmental problems.”

“Autos for years seemed to give us freedom and independence, but when they create traffic jams and other problems in the parks, the experience of serenity in nature that visitors expect is seriously diminished, if not destroyed.”

“The largest single reason for disappointing travel experiences is the failure to plan properly.”

“So many things were testing his faith. There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans. Did it then seem probable, as he had once overheard Dunbar ask, that the answers to riddles of creation would be supplied by people too ignorant to understand the mechanics of rainfall? Had Almighty God, in all His infinite wisdom, really been afraid that men six thousand years ago would succeed in building a tower to heaven?”

“But at sunset the clouds gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning. It seemed to be a part of the thickening darkness, to be the winter night itself descending on us layer by layer.”

“I want to put my hand out and touch you. I want to do for you and care for you. I want to be there when you're sick and when you're lonesome.”

“They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods.”