The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend! - Edith Wharton

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

It was the old New York way of taking life "without effusion of blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes," except the behaviour of those who gave rise to them.

If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.