The Glimpses of the Moon Quotes

“She wondered if, when human souls try to get too near each other, they do not inevitably become mere blurs to each other's vision.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“Well--there it was, and the fault was doubtless neither hers nor his, but that of the world they had grown up in, of their own moral contempt for it and physical dependence on it, of his half-talents and her half-principles, of the something in them both that was not stout enough to resist nor yet pliant enough to yield.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“Apart from the pleasure of looking at her and listening to her--of enjoying in her what others less discriminatingly but as liberally appreciated--he had the sense, between himself and her, of a kind of free-masonry of precocious tolerance and irony. They had both, in early youth, taken the measure of the world they happened to live in: they knew just what it was worth to them and for what reasons, and the community of these reasons lent to their intimacy its last exquisite touch.”
― Edith Wharton , The Glimpses of the Moon

“Perhaps, after all, Susy reflected, it was the world she was meant for, since the other, the brief Paradise of her dreams, had already shut its golden doors upon her.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“It had evidently not occurred to her as yet that those who consent to share the bread of adversity may want the whole cake of prosperity for themselves.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“Will-power, he saw, was not a thing one could suddenly decree oneself to possess. It must be built up imperceptibly and laboriously out of a succession of small efforts to meet definite objects, out of the facing of daily difficulties instead of cleverly eluding them, or shifting their burden on others.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“Superficially so like them all, and so eager to outdo them in detachment and adaptability, ridiculing the prejudices he had shaken off, and the people to whom he belonged, he still kept, under his easy pliancy, the skeleton of old faiths and old fashions. "He talks every language as well as the rest of us," Susy had once said of him, "but at least he talks one language better than the others.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“He knew enough of his subject to know that he did not know enough to write about it....”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“And how can anyone give you happiness who hasn’t got it himself?”
― Edith Wharton, Glimpses of the Moon

“Here were two people who had penetrated farther than she into the labyrinth of the wedded state, and struggled through some of its thorniest passages; and yet both, one consciously, the other half-unaware, testified to the mysterious fact which was already dawning on her: that the influence of a marriage begun in mutual understanding is too deep not to reassert itself even in the moment of flight and denial.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“...a small obscure business to the outer world, but to themselves how wide and deep and crowded!”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“She read it over and shivered. Not one word of their past-not one allusion to that mysterious interweaving of their lives which had enclosed them in the other like the flower in its sheath! What place had such memories in such a letter?”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“IT rose for them—their honey-moon—over the waters of a lake so famed as the scene of romantic raptures that they were rather proud of not having been afraid to choose it as the setting of their own.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“It had simply revealed to her once more the real point of view of the people he and she lived among, had shown her that, in spite of the superficial difference, he felt as they felt, judged as they judged, was blind as they were-and as she would be expected to be, should she once again become one of them. What was the use of being placed by fortune above such shifts and compromises, if in one's heart one still condoned them? And she would have to--she would catch the general note, grow blunted as those other people were blunted, and gradually come to wonder at her own revolt, as Strefford now honestly wondered at it. She felt as though she were on the point of losing some new-found treasure, a treasure precious only to herself, but beside which all he offered her was nothing, the triumph of her wounded pride nothing, the security of her future nothing.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“He had never seen anyone pack as cleverly as Susy: the way she coaxed reluctant things into a trunk was a symbol of the way she fitted discordant facts into her life.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“Nick had secretly wearied, if not of his wife, at least of the life that their marriage compelled him to lead. His passion was not strong enough-had never been strong enough—to outweigh his prejudices, scruples, principles, or whatever one chose to call them. Susy's dignity might go up like tinder in the blaze of her love; but his was made of a less combustible substance.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“It was a kiss with a future in it: like a ring slipped upon her soul. And now, in the dreadful pause that followed--while Strefford fidgeted with his cigarette-case and rattled the spoon in his cup--Susy remembered what she had seen through the circle of Nick's kiss: that blue illimitable distance which was at once the landscape at their feet and the future in their souls.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“По правде сказать, в её жизни с Фалмерами не было ни минуты покоя, но вся эта суматоха казалась Сюзи менее бессмысленной и потому менее утомительной, чем суета, которой сопровождалось существование людей вроде Олтрингема, Урсулы Джиллоу, Элли Вандерлин и их свиты... (О Сюзи Бранч)”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“...замыслы должны созреть, - новые впечатления редко приносят немедленный результат. (Грейс Фалмер - Сюзи Бранч)”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“Все те незнакомцы и незнакомки, которым она улыбалась мимоходом, на которых оглядывалась с завистью, были свободны от потребностей, рабой которых была она, и они не поняли бы, о чем она толкует, если бы она рассказала им, как много ей нужно денег на платья, на сигареты, на бридж, и экипажи, и чаевые, и прочие дополнительные расходы и что как раз сейчас она должна была бы бежать назад, на обед в британском посольстве, где её неизменное право на подобные излишества было бы торжественно признано и подтверждено. (О Сюзи Бранч)”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“...есть много способов ответить на письмо — и, как ни странно, писать — это не мой способ. (Ник Лэнсинг - Сюзи Бранч)”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“...стремление, которым он когда-то гордился, жить настоящим моментом и пользоваться любым предоставляющимся шансом — теперь мешало ему действовать. Он начал понимать, что никогда, даже будучи в теснейших отношениях с жизнью, не заглядывал дальше сиюминутного удовольствия. Он считал, что это прекрасно — уметь в полной мере наслаждаться моментом, а не пренебрегать им в погоне за чем-то бóльшим или иным, на манер людей чересчур щепетильных или лишенных воображения, которые для него всегда были одинаковы и равно достойны сожаления.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“Увы, только замужеством по меркам этого мира она могла добиться независимости от него же. (О Сюзи Бранч)”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“...богатые бездельники, деятельный народ, который, за неимением занятий, бесконечно кружил по свету, гонимый невесть каким зудом.”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“...её... память не соответствовала широте её интересов. (О миссис Хикс)”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“О, благословенная нравственная свобода, которую дарует богатство!”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“Вместо возможной зависимости, вынужденного возврата к прежней жизни, состоящей из компромиссов и уступок, она увидела перед собой — когда решит выбрать их — свободу, силу и достоинство. ...которое в таком мире, как их мир, могут обеспечить лишь богатство и положение в обществе. (Сюзи Бранч)”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“Власть вещей, без которых, как всем нам кажется, можно обойтись. Человеческие привычки прочней египетских пирамид. Удобства, роскошь, атмосфера свободы… а превыше всего возможность избежать скуки и монотонности, ограниченности и уродства... ...это все вещи непреходящие, необходимые прежде всего. (Стреффорд - Сюзи Бранч)”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“...жить, как живут рабочие, в двух комнатах, без прислуги... (Сюзи Бранч - Стреффорду)”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon

“Проблема с принятыми сгоряча решениями в том, что на другое утро обычно сам не знаешь, к чему всё это…”
― Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon