The real alchemy consists in being able to turn gold back again into something else; and that's the secret that most of your friends have lost.
("The House of Mirth")
More Quotes from Edith Wharton:
Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.Edith Wharton
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.
Edith Wharton
He bent and laid his lips on her hands, which were cold and lifeless. She drew them away, and he turned to the door, found his coat and hat under the faint gas-light of the hall, and plunged out into the winter night bursting with the belated eloquence of the inarticulate.
Edith Wharton
Before Selden left college he had learned that there are as many different ways of going without money as of spending it.
Edith Wharton
Her whole being dilated in an atmosphere of luxury. It was the background she required, the only climate she could breathe in.
Edith Wharton
The difference is that these young people take it for granted that they're going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn't. Only, I wonder-the thing one's so certain of in advance: can it ever make one's heart beat as wildly?
Edith Wharton
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