“Each time you happen to me all over again.”

“There is someone I must say goodbye to. Oh, not you - we are sure to see each other again - but the Lily Bart you knew. I have kept her with me all this time, but now we are going to part, and I have brought her back to you - I am going to leave her here. When I go out presently she will not go with me. I shall like to think that she has stayed with you.”

“When two people part who have loved each other it is as if what happens between them befell in a great emptiness - as if the tearing asunder of the flesh must turn at last into a disembodied anguish.”

“You are an artist and I happen to be the bit of color you are using today.”

“You gave me my first glimpse of a real life, and at the same moment you asked me to go on with a sham one. It's beyond human enduring-that's all.”

“And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them ...”

“She had given him all she had - but what was it compared to the other gifts life held for him? She understood now the case of girls like herself to whom this kind of thing happened. They gave all they had, but their all was not enough; it could not buy more than a few moments...”