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
The true felicity of a lover of books is the luxurious turning of page by page, the surrender, not meanly abject, but deliberate and cautious, with your wits about you, as you deliver yourself into the keeping of the book. This I call reading.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Reading is a complex and immersive experience that requires intention and awareness.
In this quote, Edith Wharton expresses that true happiness for a book lover comes from the mindful and deliberate act of reading. It is not a passive activity but rather an engaging journey where the reader consciously immerses themselves into the narrative, symbolizing a deep respect for literature and the transformative power it holds.
Themes
ReadingBooksLiteratureImmersionEducation
In practice
Example use cases
In a book club discussion, someone might say, 'As Edith Wharton said, the joy of reading lies in the deliberate turning of the pages, fully immersing ourselves in the story.'
More from Edith Wharton
All quotes →They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods
Edith WhartonRead
Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.
Edith WhartonRead
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.
Edith WhartonRead
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 other’s 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
Edith WhartonRead
There are two ways to spread happiness; either be the light who shines it or be the mirror who reflects it.
Edith WhartonRead
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Don't be afraid! We won't make an author of you, while there's an honest trade to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to.
Charles DickensRead
The teacher who allows his scholars the freedom of the city of books is at liberty to be their guide, philosopher and friend; and is no longer the mere instrument of forcible intellectual feeding.
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The only advice ... that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions.
Virginia WoolfRead
I feel a kind of reverence for the first books of young authors. There is so much aspiration in them, so much audacious hope and trembling fear, so much of the heart's history, that all errors and shortcomings are for a while lost sight of in the amiable self assertion of youth.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead