They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods.

Archer had always been inclined to think that chance and circumstance played a small part in shaping people's lots compared with their innate tendency to have things happen to them.

The noble buoyancy of her attitude, its suggestion of soaring grace, revealed the touch of poetry in her beauty that Selden always felt in her presence, yet lost the sense of when he was not with her. Its expression was now so vivid that for the first time he seemed to see before him the real Lily Bart, divested of all the trivialities of her little world, and catching for a moment a note of that eternal harmony of whichher beauty was a part.

The thing is_ I was a very proud girl. I never wanted to take the chance I might get hurt. Isn__ that funny? I was game for any exciting adventure that came my way, but when it came to risking my heart, I was a coward.

Whoever risks, shall know how far they can reach.

There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there__ only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there__ no reason why you shouldn__ have a fairly good time.