sadder and wiser

Demi lay fast asleep, not in his usual spreadeagle attitude, but in a subdued bunch, cuddled close in the circle of his father’s arm and holding his father’s finger, as if he felt that justice was tempered with mercy, and had gone to sleep a sadder and wiser baby.

Somehow, the younger Fellini strikes me as sadder and wiser than the all-powerful magus he would eventually become.

You finish it feeling sadder and wiser, so if you’re O.K. with the sadder part, you should take it on.

Flannery, sadder and wiser as an adult, seems to be sleepwalking through life when she’s invited to speak at a Yale conference for women writers moderated by Anne, who has become a respected academic and author.

"Take Me to the River" reaches its end sadder and wiser if not satisfactorily complete as a psychodrama.