They are all alike you know. They hold their tongues for years and you think you're safe, but when the opportunity comes they remember everything.
Edith WhartonRead
You thought I was a lovelorn mistress; and I was only an expensive prostitute.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The speaker reveals the misunderstanding of their true intentions in a relationship, highlighting the difference between love and transactional connections.
In this quote, Edith Wharton addresses the theme of misunderstanding within relationships, particularly the often misconceived notions of love and desire. The speaker emphasizes that what may appear to be a romantic or emotional involvement is, in reality, a transactional relationship, where emotional attachment is mistaken for love. This distinction illustrates the complexities of human connections and the assumptions people make about each other's motives and feelings.
Themes
RelationshipsLoveMisunderstandingIntentionTransaction
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the nature of love vs. transactional relationships.
More from Edith Wharton
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Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.
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And I wonder, among all the tangles of this mortal coil, which one contains tighter knots to undo, & consequently suggests more tugging, & pain, & diversified elements of misery, than the marriage tie.
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As he paid the hansom and followed his wife's long train into the house he took refuge in the comforting platitude that the first six months were always the most difficult in marriage. 'After that I suppose we shall have pretty nearly finished rubbing off each otherβs angles,' he reflected; but the worst of it was that May's pressure was already bearing on the very angles whose sharpness he most wanted to keep
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There are two ways to spread happiness; either be the light who shines it or be the mirror who reflects it.
Edith WhartonRead
Similar quotes
We [should not] make the mistake of thinking that marriage will provide the ultimate satisfaction for which we all hunger. To assume so would be to be guilty of blasphemy. Only God satisfies the hungry heart. Marriage is but one of the channels He uses to enable us to taste how deeply satisfying His thirst-quenching grace can be.
Sinclair B. FergusonRead
It's a terrible thing to be alone - yes it is - it is - but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath - as terrible as you like - but a mask.
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The task of organizing human happiness needs the active cooperation of man and woman: it cannot be relegated to one half of the world.
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At least 260 species of animal have been noted exhibiting homosexual behavior but only one species of animal ever, so far as we know, has exhibited homophobic behavior - and that's the human being.
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We shall be free only together, black and white. We shall survive only together, black and white. We can be human only together, black and white.
Desmond TutuRead
If something is going on, I hear about it. I like to talk to people, I socialise. Television is a waste of time. Human contact is what matters.
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