Edith Wharton was a natural story-teller. As plots do in real life, hers flow directly from character. Her prose is so effortlessly elegant that you're rarely aware as they purl by that the sentences are so pretty. More concerned with what is put than how it is put, she also understood that you only say anything at all when you say it well.

Dieting is odious and can require years of determination and sacrifice. I entirely understand the impulse to say, 'Screw it,' and have another piece of cake.

I was born after the heavy spade work of female emancipation was done.

Lionel Shriver Quotes