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Pitied? Horrid thought. The great thing in life was to be so situated that you can pity others. But to be pitied yourself?

— Elizabeth von Arnim The Benefactress (1901)

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More quotes by Elizabeth von Arnim

By the time she was twenty-four, nearly all the girls who had come out when she did were married, and she felt as though she were a ghost haunting the ball-rooms of a younger generation.

The Benefactress (1901)

Beauty; beauty. What was the good of beauty, once it was over? It left nothing behind it but acid regrets, and no heart at all to start fresh. Nearly everything else left something.

Mr. Skeffington (1940)

What a happy woman I am, living in a garden, with books, babies, birds, and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them! Yet my town acquaintances look upon it as imprisonment, and burying, and I don't what besides, and would rend the air with their shrieks if condemned to such a life. Sometimes I fell as if I were blest above all my fellows in being able to find my happiness so easily.

Elizabeth and Her German Garden (1898)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Elizabeth von Arnim (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.