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The House of Mirth quotes
11 quotes from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. Source: Project Gutenberg e-text #284 (public domain in the USA), the text this site’s reader shows. Each quote is copied exactly from that text and links to its passage in the reader; when this page was built, every quote was checked word for word against the reader’s text.
Oh——” Miss Bart protested, drawing back from her penitent clasp; but Mrs. Fisher went on with her usual directness: “Look here, Lily, don’t let’s beat about the bush: half the trouble in life is caused by pretending there isn’t any.
— Spoken by a character · Chapter 5
“Do you remember what you said to me once? That you could help me only by loving me? Well—you did love me for a moment; and it helped me. It has always helped me. But the moment is gone—it was I who let it go. And one must go on living. Goodbye.”
— Spoken by a character · Chapter 12
She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate.
Why do we call all our generous ideas illusions, and the mean ones truths?
— Selden · Chapter 6
Her husband’s faith in her had made her renewal possible—it is so easy for a woman to become what the man she loves believes her to be!
She had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her own making, and it was odious to her that her husband should make a show of himself before the servants.
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.
— Spoken by a character · Chapter 6
No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity; and the sense of being of importance among the insignificant was enough to restore to Miss Bart the gratifying consciousness of power.
We are expected to be pretty and well-dressed till we drop—and if we can’t keep it up alone, we have to go into partnership.
— Spoken by a character · Chapter 1
Her whole being dilated in an atmosphere of luxury; it was the background she required, the only climate she could breathe in.
As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath.