Anna Godbersen

“Even when a girl is married she still never completely leaves her mother and father's home.”

“It occurred to him, for the first time, that it did unflattering things to a person when affection was taken away from them. For there had been a time when she had seemed gorgeous, and fun, and all of her naughtiness had had for him a kind of irresistible pull. It was only after he decided he didn't want her anymore that she became a shrew, and obliterated his memory of the girl she used to be.”

“Love is all right, as things go, but lovers can be a terrible waste of a girl's time.”

“He was a mystery to her, and every time she tried to solve him it caused her a little more pain. But when she tired to give him up he pursued her in her thoughts, stronger each time.”

“She felt so much aware of her own beauty it seemed inconceivable that everybody else wouldn't notice the difference too.”

“Diana felt she was beginning to understand why, in all those novels she read, the headiest loves were the loves that couldn't be.”

“We have glimpsed in it the future of high society: wealth without class.”

“Girls," their mother interjected, "you must both stop being strange - it is unattractive. And don't forget your hats. It would be absolutely the end for me if you two came down with freckles at a time like this.”

“The world is such a marvel-it gave you trials, but if you were still and concentrated, if you tried to do the right thing, it always provided you with salvation.”

“Interesting" people were her favorite hobby. She collected them: the type who did gay things late at night and smoked cigarettes in mixed company, those would have most scandalized her own mother.”

“Travel always excited her--the strong and unfamiliar smells, the movement, the anxiety of arrival and departure times, she shouting of conductors, the idea of her tired old self changed by ever new surroundings.”

“Elizabeth who was only partially visible to her stared out the window very much awake as though she were contemplating the end of man.”

“Living too much in one's head can be dangerous.”

“Darling, don't be silly, your whole future is ahead of you. All you have to do is go out there and ask for a part- something small and reasonable just to start with. From there, no one can stop you. Don't feel bad about anything you've done, and for God's sake, have fun.”

“Henry was thinking of the younger Holland sister of the way she could go from being an impetuous girl to a knowing woman in a few seconds and never lose the stars in her eyes.”

“Life was a short window and there was no sense in doing the wrong thing over and over even if it was so difficult to stop.”

“Marriage is a mystery that one would be wise not to solve too hastily.--- Marve De Jong, Love And Other Follies Of The Great Families Of Old New York”

“It's the craziest thing, but I can't stop thinking about you.”

“Our era has produced many great men--- robber barons, masters of innovation, beast of business---whose staggering wealth, incomparable ruthlessness and personal legends would seem to prove they are dominant species but then one has a look at their son, and doubts the theory of evolution entirely. -DR. Bertrand Legmam Cooper, Problems of Science and Society, Posted by One Who Has Known Both, 1900”

“They were all dressed in their finest as though life really were some magical stage play in which every moment ought to be illuminated with its own bright spotlight.”