Status Updates From The House of Mirth

She looked at him gently. '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.'

Once again, Lily had withdrawn from an ambiguous situation in time to save her self-respect, but too late for public vindication.

You asked me if I could understand why Ned spent so much money. He spends it on living with the rich. You think we live on the rich, rather than with them: and so we do, in a sense—but it's a privilege we have to pay for! We eat their dinners, and drink their wine, and smoke their cigarettes, and use their carriages and their opera-boxes and their cars—yes, but there's a tax to pay on every one of those luxuries