The Old Wives' Tale Quotes

“. . . humanity walks ever on a thin crust over terrific abysses.”
― Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale

“The manner of his life was of no importance. What affected her was that he had once been young. That he had grown old, and was now dead. That was all. Youth and vigour had come to that. Youth and vigour always came to that. Everything came to that.”
― Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale

“Good clothes, when put to the test, survive a change in fortune, as a Roman arch survives the luxury of departed empire.”
― Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale

“Happily the inhabitants of the Five Towns in that era were passably pleased with themselves; and they never even suspected that they were not quite modern and not quite awake. They thought that the intellectual, the industrial, and the social movements had gone about as far as these movements could go, and they were amazed at their own progress.”
― Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale

“God is not mocked!”
― Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale

“Yet a little while," she thought, "and I shall be lying on a bed like that! And what shall I have lived for? What is the meaning of it?" The riddle of life itself was killing her, and she seemed to drown in a sea of inexpressible sorrow.”
― Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale