"The House of Mirth" Quotes

We're expected to be pretty, and well-dressed, and amusing. And if we fail, we're simply non-existent. We're just the background.

I have to cultivate my graces. I've had a hard enough time in doing it; but I'm bound to get some results.

After all, one isn't less alone for being in a crowd. Because I'm lonely and unimportant, I conclude that the people at the party are all empty, too.

No man has ever spoken of her lightly! I do her that justice.

It's easy to get everything you want, provided you're willing to pay the price.

I never saw anything so out of place. It's absurd for a woman to go to a hotel alone.

But it's my fate to meet people just when they're on the threshold of a new life, and to be the instrument of their deliverance. I've done it for scores of girls. There was Nettie Crane, and the Wetheralls' cousin from Springfield— Marian Pinch— and Marjie— you remember Marjie, don't you?— and Lulu Mellins and Carrie Grace. I can't remember half the people I've done it for; but you can ask Gerty Farish if it isn't true.

I hate being poor.

I have to take my world as I find it.

I can't afford to lose the little money I have.