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61 " Because you're such a wonderful spectacle: I always like to see what you are doing. "
― Edith Wharton , The House of Mirth
62 " ...women never learn to dispense with the sentimental motive in their judgments of men. "
63 " she always paid for her rare indiscretions by a violent reaction of prudence. "
64 " There were in her at the moment two beings, one drawing deep breaths of freedom and exhilaration, the other gasping for air in a little black prison-house of fears. "
65 " From whatever angle he viewed their dawning intimacy, he could not see it as part of her scheme of life; and to be the unforeseen element in a career so accurately planned was stimulating even to a man who had renounced sentimental experiments. "
66 " She had several times been in love with fortunes or careers, but only once with a man. "
67 " You asked me just now for the truth---well, the truth about any girl is that once she’s talk about she’s done for; and the more she explains her case the worse it looks. "
68 " But you'll get it back-you'll get it all back, with your face... "
69 " She hardly knew what she had been seeking, or why the failure to find it had so blotted the light from her sky: she was only aware of a vague sense of failure, of an inner isolation deeper than the loneliness about her. "
70 " she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with fresh compliances and adaptabilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour of boring her for life. "
71 " Oh, I am—it's much safer to be fond of dangerous people. "
72 " Lost causes had a romantic charm for her, "
73 " The people who take society as an escape from work are putting it to its proper use; but when it becomes the thing worked for it distorts all the relations of life. "
74 " It is surprising how little narrow walls and a low ceiling matter, when the roof of the soul has suddenly been raised. "
75 " Some one said the other day that there was a divorce and a case of appendicitis in every family one knows. "
76 " How beautiful it was---and how she loved beauty! She had always felt that her sensibility in this direction made up for certain obtuseness of feeling of which she was less proud. "
77 " Even women have been known to enjoy the privileges of a flat. "
78 " She had once more shown her talent for profiting by the unexpected, and dangerous theories as to the advisability of yielding to impulse were germinating under the surface of smiling attention which she continued to present to her companion. "
79 " She had been bored all the afternoon by Percy Gryce—the mere thought seemed to waken an echo of his droning voice—but she could not ignore him on the morrow, she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with fresh compliances and adaptabilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour of boring her for life. "
80 " But she could not breathe long on the heights; there had been nothing in her training to develop any continuity of moral strength: what she craved, and really felt herself entitled to, was a situation in which the noblest attitude should also be the easiest. Hitherto her intermittent impulses of resistance had sufficed to maintain her self-respect. "