The Age Of Innocence Quotes
"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 one of the great livery-stableman’s most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it."
"But, in the first place, New York was a metropolis, and perfectly aware that in metropolises it was 'not the thing' to arrive early at the opera."
"He had dawdled over his cigar because he was at heart a dilettante, and thinking over a pleasure to come often gave him a subtler satisfaction than its realization."
"This seemed as natural to Newland Archer as all the other conventions on which his life was molded."
"The act was ending, and there was a general stir in the box."
"The desire to be the first man to enter Mrs. Mingott’s box, to proclaim to the waiting world his engagement to May Welland, and to see her through whatever difficulties her cousin’s anomalous situation might involve her in."
"The habit of masculine solidarity made him accept their doctrine on all the issues called moral."
"The worst of it is that I want to kiss you and I can’t."
"Etiquette required that she should wait, immovable as an idol, while the men who wished to converse with her succeeded each other at her side."
"I’m not clever enough to argue with you. But that kind of thing is rather—vulgar, isn’t it?"
"The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!"
"It’s confoundedly dull, anyhow; New York is dying of dullness."
"Ah, well—It was their old interminable argument as to the obstinate unwillingness of the 'clever people' to frequent the fashionable."
"In this country are such things tolerated? I’m a Protestant—our church does not forbid divorce in such cases."
"The fact is, life isn’t much a fit for either of us."
"Why should he not be, at that moment, on the sands of St. Augustine with May Welland?"
"But once he was married, what would become of this narrow margin of life in which his real experiences were lived?"
"It made Archer shiver to think that it might be spreading over him too."
"I wanted to be quiet, and think things over."
"The doors of Skuytercliff were rarely and grudgingly opened to visitors."
"If you’d all of you rather she should be Beaufort’s mistress than some decent fellow’s wife you’ve certainly gone the right way about it."
"But you are the woman I would have married if it had been possible for either of us."
"It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country."
"It was the perfect balance she had held between their loyalty to others and their honesty to themselves that had so stirred and yet tranquilized him."
"She had grown tired of what people called 'society'; New York was kind, it was almost oppressively hospitable."
"I want to be perfectly honest with you—and with myself."
"She's so romantic-looking, isn't she? Doesn't she remind you of Mrs. Scott–Siddons when she reads 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship'?"
"We're damnably dull. We've no character, no colour, no variety."
"The longing was with him day and night, an incessant undefinable craving."
"We shall hurt others less. Isn’t it, after all, what you always wanted?"
"We’re near each other only if we stay far from each other."
"Well, it’s settled, anyhow: she’s going to stay with me, whatever the rest of the family say!"
"I should like, though," he continued in a firmer voice, "to add one thing."
"The day after she got here she put on her best bonnet, and told me, as cool as a cucumber, that she was going to call on Regina Beaufort."
"This was what had to be, then … this was what had to be," he kept repeating to himself.
"I’m dreadfully late—you weren’t worried, were you?"
"A really good talk," she went on, smiling with what seemed to Archer an unnatural vividness.
"Yes, you’ve thought—?" he echoed as she paused.
"Well, perhaps I haven’t judged her fairly. She’s so different—at least on the surface."
"I’m afraid she’s quite alienated the van der Luydens."
"You haven’t kissed me today," she said in a whisper.
"It’s time to dress; we’re dining out, aren’t we?"
"I hope, dear Sillerton," said Mrs. Archer, "you are not suggesting that we should adopt such standards?"
"Is it possible, dear, that what I hear is true?"
"Oh, no," she exclaimed with a momentary flush, "but hadn’t you better go to bed at once?"
"Has he got any?" cried Mr. Sillerton Jackson.
"It’s more real to me here than if I went up," he suddenly heard himself say.
"Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back alone to his hotel."