1
Don't go looking for boys in the dark They will say pretty things thenleave you with scars. Do go looking for boys in the park For that is where the true gentlemen are.Anna Godbersen
2
The first stab of love is like a sunset, a blaze of color -- oranges, pearly pinks, vibrant purples...Anna Godbersen
3
Gossip is just a tool to distract people who have nothing better to do from feeling jealous of those few of us still remaining with noble hearts.Anna Godbersen
4
Girls, " their mother interjected, "you must both stop being strange - it is unattractive. And don't forget your hats. It would be absolutely the end for me if you two came down with freckles at a time like this.Anna Godbersen
5
She was like a heroine in a novel that she herself was writing the character kept protesting that she was too strong for love and yet the narrator went on describing her desire.Anna Godbersen
6
She found herself longing for home-not just for the hotel but for New York and all the real novels that she could lose herself in there.Anna Godbersen
7
Interesting" people were her favorite hobby. She collected them: the type who did gay things late at night and smoked cigarettes in mixed company, those would have most scandalized her own mother.Anna Godbersen
8
He turned his dark eyes on the girl whom he had dreamed of so often over the previous months. Beside him, at that very moment of existence, at the heart of torrential downpour, she was exquisitely real, and she, too, seemed content to go on sitting there forever.Anna Godbersen
9
That is what I want to tell you about: the girls with their short skirts and bright eyes and big-city dreams. The girls of 1929.Anna Godbersen
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Though her emotions had not deviated from a jittery frailty she knew that in her own room she could at least attempt sleep and that if she dreamed she might then finally be with Henry.Anna Godbersen
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It is easy to forget now, how effervescent and free we all felt that summer.Anna Godbersen
12
Girls took to dressing like boys, and though women had obtained the vote, we had swiftly moved on to pursuing flashier freedoms: necking in cars and smoking cigarettes and walking down city streets in flesh colored stockings.Anna Godbersen
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She felt so much aware of her own beauty it seemed inconceivable that everybody else wouldn't notice the difference too.Anna Godbersen
14
They will stop calling brides beautiful after today–you have simply set the standard too high, ' he said.Anna Godbersen
15
I tell you Schoonmaker she doesn't know what she has. That's the heart of it. She's like some wild creature who hasn't a clue the worth of its coat.Anna Godbersen
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Diana felt she was beginning to understand why, in all those novels she read, the headiest loves were the loves that couldn't be.Anna Godbersen
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He was a mystery to her, and every time she tried to solve him it caused her a little more pain. But when she tired to give him up he pursued her in her thoughts, stronger each time.Anna Godbersen
18
It had been an awful thing to lose Henry the first time, to matrimony, but to discover what a false front he was capable of was another kind of blow, and it had left her almost speechless. Then there was the fury with herself–for she had known what Henry’s love was, and still she had gone back to suffer a little more at his hands.Anna Godbersen
19
A young woman, newly wed, may find herself in the delightful position of wanting to do nothing without the company of her darling husband. She may indeed discover that she spends all her waking hours with her fellow to the exclusion of every other friend or family member. This is understandable, but wholly unacceptable, to society.Anna Godbersen
20
Even when a girl is married she still never completely leaves her mother and father's home.Anna Godbersen
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Marriage is a mystery that one would be wise not to solve too hastily.--- Marve De Jong, Love And Other Follies Of The Great Families Of Old New YorkAnna Godbersen
22
Her heart the damned thing had begun to race and she only hoped that the rapid inflation and deflation of her chest wasn't visible beneath her fitted bodice.Anna Godbersen
23
The world is such a marvel-it gave you trials, but if you were still and concentrated, if you tried to do the right thing, it always provided you with salvation.Anna Godbersen
24
Darling, don't be silly, your whole future is ahead of you. All you have to do is go out there and ask for a part- something small and reasonable just to start with. From there, no one can stop you. Don't feel bad about anything you've done, and for God's sake, have fun.Anna Godbersen
25
She thought of Henry and Diana on the stoop gazing at each other with the confusion and sadness of two puppies who have just stumbled into their first puddle and not yet come to understand what has happened to them and found that she wanted to lie extravagantly.Anna Godbersen
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Living too much in one's head can be dangerous.Anna Godbersen
27
A man is made in the rough-and-tumble of the world a lady emerges from the flossy back rooms of her own imagination.Anna Godbersen
28
They were all dressed in their finest as though life really were some magical stage play in which every moment ought to be illuminated with its own bright spotlight.Anna Godbersen
29
Always stay sharp on railways and cruise ships for transit has a way of making everything clear.Anna Godbersen
30
Travel always excited her--the strong and unfamiliar smells, the movement, the anxiety of arrival and departure times, she shouting of conductors, the idea of her tired old self changed by ever new surroundings.Anna Godbersen
31
We have glimpsed in it the future of high society: wealth without class.Anna Godbersen
32
She had rarely been near Henry since then, and the sight of him now was like a concentrated dose.Anna Godbersen
33
She was trying to sound tough and impatient, but she knew that vulnerable desire to be wooed was still brimming in her tone.Anna Godbersen
34
Ah well that I can't tell you." Diana ducked her head so that the brim of her bonnet covered her face. "Some things must remain a mystery and for now I think I'll keep my opinion of you and your compliments to myself.Anna Godbersen
35
That was how the heroine of a book would play it and Diana was still writing her own story the best heroines she'd always believed took their fate into their own hands.Anna Godbersen
36
It's the craziest thing, but I can't stop thinking about you.Anna Godbersen
37
Elizabeth who was only partially visible to her stared out the window very much awake as though she were contemplating the end of man.Anna Godbersen
38
It is easy to forget now, how effervescent and free we all felt that summer. Everything fades: the shimmer of gold over White Cove; the laughter in the night air; the lavender early morning light on the faces of skyscrapers, which had suddenly become so heroically tall. Every dawn seemed to promise fresh miracles, among other joys that are in short supply these days. And so I will try to tell you, while I still remember, how it was then, before everything changed-that final season of the era that roared. .Anna Godbersen
39
It occurred to him, for the first time, that it did unflattering things to a person when affection was taken away from them. For there had been a time when she had seemed gorgeous, and fun, and all of her naughtiness had had for him a kind of irresistible pull. It was only after he decided he didn't want her anymore that she became a shrew, and obliterated his memory of the girl she used to be.Anna Godbersen
40
She was a vision in a white gown her dark hair forming a hazy halo around her rosy heart-shaped face. Her long lashes fluttered to touch her cheeks and then her eyes opened fully in his direction. Her small round mouth flexed in an immediate and knowing smile. That's the girl I'm going to marry Henry thought.Anna Godbersen
41
Love is all right, as things go, but lovers can be a terrible waste of a girl's time.Anna Godbersen
42
Good night.' Diana summoned all the dignity that she could manage in her bedraggled state and began to move back up the beach. Her dress was soaked and her stockings dotted with sand and her heart couldn't possibly withstand any more.Anna Godbersen
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Life was a short window and there was no sense in doing the wrong thing over and over even if it was so difficult to stop.Anna Godbersen
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Henry was thinking of the younger Holland sister of the way she could go from being an impetuous girl to a knowing woman in a few seconds and never lose the stars in her eyes.Anna Godbersen
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Our era has produced many great men--- robber barons, masters of innovation, beast of business---whose staggering wealth, incomparable ruthlessness and personal legends would seem to prove they are dominant species but then one has a look at their son, and doubts the theory of evolution entirely. -DR. Bertrand Legmam Cooper, Problems of Science and Society, Posted by One Who Has Known Both, 1900Anna Godbersen
46
It was disgraceful but also romantic enough to make Lina's heart turn.Anna Godbersen
47
I know that I might die but that seems a happier end than being without you and anyway it seems to me that looking in the face of hard things and still being able to move forward even when the end includes grave danger and the possibility of death is the mark of a man.Anna Godbersen
48
I can't imagine what my life was before. I can't imagine ever being without you for very long again.Anna Godbersen
49
Already she could feel the stunning weight of a lifetime of regret for letting him go, and she knew that it was enought to bury her alive.Anna Godbersen
50
It is well known that a man, when wooing a lady to be his wife, must first win over the females she most confides in–her friends, of course, and her sister, if she has one.Anna Godbersen
51
THE LUXE IS .. .Pretty girls in pretty dresses, partying until dawn. Irresistible boys with mischievous smiles and dangerous intentions. White lies, dark secrets, and scandalous hookups. This is Manhattan in 1899.Anna Godbersen
52
The value of secrets is ever fluctuating although ladies who have been in society for a long time learn that a secret kept can be worth more than a secret told.Anna Godbersen
53
She was full of some strange energy that morning. Her every movement had purpose and life and she seemed to find satisfaction in every little thing.Anna Godbersen
54
Henry closed his eyes and imagined the sweet petulant woundedness with which she had stared at him on the beach. He felt a little proud that she could love him.Anna Godbersen
55
Henry wondered not for the first time if her blood ran red or black.Anna Godbersen
56
It was like the color of his eyes, she supposed - not quite one shade or another, and utterly unlike anyone else's.Anna Godbersen
57
Diana knew it wouldn't be right, but then she told herself that things only looked wrong when there was someone to see you.Anna Godbersen
58
We see our sins reflected everywhere: in the pallor of our intimates’ faces, in the scratching of tree branches against windows, in the strange movements of everyday objects. These may be messages from God or tricks of the eye, but in neither case are we permitted to ignore them.Anna Godbersen
59
She now saw that she wanted a boy to do more than follow her in blind devotion. She wanted a boy to challenge her, to tell her about things she'd never thought of, to show her new points of view.Anna Godbersen
60
Instead, he sat in the parlor of his family's Fifth Avenue mansion, growing older by the minute just like everybody else.Anna Godbersen
61
So this was betrayal. It was like being left alone in the desert at dusk without water or warmth. It left your mouth dry and will broken. It sapped your tears and made you hollow.Anna Godbersen
62
All really interesting girls invent themselves.Anna Godbersen
63
The living are made of nothing but flaws. The dead, with each passing day in the afterlife, become more and more impeccable to those who remain earthbound.Anna Godbersen
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Things only looked wrong when there was someone to see you.Anna Godbersen
65
Good girls hold their heads high by daylight, Their grace and their virtue soaring with kites, While bad girls slink along in their shame- Everyone stares at them, everyone blames. But those bad girls sleep soundly at night, Ne'er do their consciences wake them in a fright, While our good girls toss and they turn- They lay awake for those who will burn.Anna Godbersen
66
It is a truth universally acknowledge that there will always be a gentleman to dance with, except at just the moment when you require one most.Anna Godbersen
67
What was it about that short creature with her wild hair and spurious air of purity and why would anyone much less two men love her and to such disastrous ends.Anna Godbersen
68
As she always did on any really important day, Penelope Hayes wore red.Anna Godbersen
69
Before her angry impulses got the better of her, she admonished herself that she was born to win and that one did not win by throwing temper tantrums--at least not outside of one's own home, which could result in vicious, spurious rumors.Anna Godbersen
70
One did not win by throwing temper tantrums.Anna Godbersen
71
It is a fact of big cities that one girl's darkest how is always another's moment of shining triumph, and New York is the biggest and cruelest city of them all.Anna Godbersen
72
Slowly the sky turned from the color of cornflower to that of hyacinth, and the Ferris wheel at Coney Island appeared like a ring of diamonds against the twilight. New York-that city made of canyons between tall buildings, and ornate houses filled with glittering things that might trap a girl forever-was nothing more than a few dots on an infinite landscape. The atmosphere was crystalline and afforded her a perfect view. Only from this place was she able to see how limited the city was, after everything, and how wide open the world could all of a sudden become. .Anna Godbersen
73
I've always believed in savoring the moments. In the end, they are the only things we'll have.Anna Godbersen
74
There was no pleasure like being envied on a mass scale.Anna Godbersen
75
Heart-stopping envy is the sincerest form of flattery.Anna Godbersen
76
What a privilege it is to live now, at just this moment, and to be able to go anywhere....Anna Godbersen
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The best heroines, she'd always believed, took their fate into their own hands.Anna Godbersen
78
Well, if you weren't flirting with him"-his voice had now grown a little plaintive-"who was he, and what did you want with him anyway?"" If you are so determined to bore me, I may just have to go home." Astrid sighed carelessly, "What a shame, when I am wearing such a pretty dress.Anna Godbersen
79
Do not go looking for boys in the dark They will say pretty things then leave you with scars. Do go looking for boys in the park For that is where the true gentlemen are.Anna Godbersen
80
In New York there is always something to look at, but it is all infinitely more interesting through a window in the backseat of a limousine.Anna Godbersen
81
How she wished she had Elizabeth to herself for a little so they could discuss what Henry's real intentions were and also how high and mighty Penelope had acted at lunch and what a tremendous insult it was that she'd come at all and did anyone really think she was beautiful with those oversize features anyway.Anna Godbersen