Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone. - Edith Wharton

Life is always either a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope.

The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else.

I couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great flame. But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered, and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my mind, just quietly trusting it to come true.