From Edith Wharton's THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

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1921 Pulitzer-Prize winning novel
Ms. Wharton was the first woman
to win this award.

He had always traveled as a sight-seer 
and looker-on, affecting a haughty 
unconsciousness of the presence 
of his fellow human beings.

***
 
He saw that he was saying all the things 
that young men in the same situation 
were expected to say, and that she
was making the answers that 
instance and tradition 
taught her to make–
even to the point 
of calling him 
original.

***
 
To let her talk about familiar and simple things 
was the easiest way of carrying on his own 
independent train of thought.

***

He did not want her to have that kind of innocence 
that seals the mind from imagination 
and the heart against experience.

For 112 quotes from Edith Wharton's novel–

in standard format, click  here.


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Footnotes

There are no shortage of books by or about  Edith Wharton.

I  recommend  Edith Wharton, An Extraordinary Life
simply because this 1999 Abrams Book was designed
by the future Mrs. CarPeo.

The book designer is a big fan of Martin Scorsese's
film adaptation  of The Age of Innocence.

I am a big fan of Edith Wharton's wit as evidenced by
this quote from the opening pages of the novel:

She sang, of course “M’ama” and not “he loves me,” 
since an unalterable rule of the musical world required that the German text 
of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian 
for the clever understanding of English-speaking audiences.

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