“There's nothing grimmer than the tragedy that wears a comic mask.”

“Ah, good conversation — there's nothing like it, is there? The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.”

“Nothing is more perplexing to a man than the mental process of a woman who reasons her emotions.”

“It was the old New York way...the way people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes", except those who gave rise to them. ”

“She is still a bundle of engaging possibilities rather than a finished picture. Of the mother there is nothing to say, for that excellent lady evidently requires familiar surroundings to bring out such small individuality as she possesses. In the unfamiliar she becomes invisible; and Longlands and she will never be visible to each other.”

“Don't they always go from bad to worse? There's no turning back--yourold self rejects you, and shuts you out. ~Lilly Bart”

“I shan't be lonely now. I was lonely; I was afraid. But the emptiness and the darkness are gone; when I turn back into myself now I'm like a child going at night into a room where there's always a light.”