Quotes from A Backward Glance — Edith Wharton
1862–1937 United States
← All quotes by Edith Wharton
5 quotes
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.
A Backward Glance (1934)
There's no such thing as old age; there is only sorrow.
A Backward Glance (1934)
In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.
A Backward Glance (1934)
I was never allowed to read the popular American children's books of my day because, as my mother said, the children spoke bad English without the author's knowing it.
A Backward Glance (1934)
To James's intimates, however, these elaborate hesitancies, far from being an obstacle, were like a cobweb bridge flung from his mind to theirs, an invisible passage over which one knew that silver-footed ironies, veiled jokes, tiptoe malices, were stealing to explode a huge laugh at one's feet.
A Backward Glance (1934)