Edith Wharton

Life is either always a tight-rope or a featherbed. Give me a tight-rope.
Edith Wharton - Vesalius in Zante
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

- Edith Wharton