Ethan Frome

By Edith Wharton QUOTATION: Almost everybody in the neighborhood had “troubles,” frankly localized and specified; but only the chosen had “complications.” To have them was in itself a distinction, though it was also, in most cases, a death warrant. People struggled on for years with “troubles,” but they almost always succumbed to “complications.”
ATTRIBUTION: Edith Wharton (1862–1937), U.S. author. Ethan Frome, ch. 7 (1911).