“True originality consists not in a new manner, but in a new vision.”

“...In the summer New York was the only place in which one could escape from New Yorkers...”

“Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the "new people" whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to”

“It was amusement enough to be with a group of fearless and talkative girls, who said new things in a new language, who were ignorant of tradition and unimpressed by distinctions of rank; but it was soon clear that their young hostesses must be treated with the same respect, if not with the same ceremony as English girls of good family.”

“Beauty (was)a gift which, in the eyes of New York, justified every success, and excused a certain number of failings.”

“To begin with, I hate these new-fangled intermediate meals. Why can't people eat enough at luncheon to last till dinner?”

“There were certain things that had to be done, and if done at all, done handsomely and thoroughly; and one of these, in the old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe.”