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
I don't know that I should care for a man who made life easy; I should want some one who made it interesting.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that a fulfilling life is more about the excitement and interest brought by experiences than just ease and comfort.
Edith Wharton expresses a perspective on relationships and life in general, emphasizing that a partner or a companion should enrich one's life by making it interesting rather than merely comfortable. The desire for stimulation and challenge reflects a deeper understanding of what makes life meaningful, highlighting the value of experiences that may be difficult but ultimately rewarding.
In practice
During a motivational speech about the importance of challenging experiences.
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.
They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods
Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.
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.
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
There are two ways to spread happiness; either be the light who shines it or be the mirror who reflects it.
Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.
We're always experiencing joy or sadness. But there are lots of people who've closed down. And there are times in one's life when one has to close down just to regroup.
A glamorous life is quite different to a life of luxury. I donβt need luxury. For years, I was practically broke but I was still very vain and glamorous. And I still am.
There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne β bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive.
I was a quicksilver girl who saw every leaf on every tree. For me, there was no middle ground between sinking and flying, and once I was into my early adult years, my roller coaster got wilder and faster: I seemed to rise and fall with the same reckless velocity.
Everything was usual. That was depression: being stuck, clinging to an out-of-date version of oneself.
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