Henry James Quotes

Author Image

Henry James

Profession : Writer

Birth : April 15, 1843

Deep experience is never peaceful.

Henry James

Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue.

Henry James

The face of nature and civilization in this our country is to a certain point a very sufficient literary field. But it will yield its secrets only to a really grasping imagination. To write well and worthily of American things one need even more than elsewhere to be a master.

Henry James

It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.

Henry James

Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

Henry James

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.

Henry James

The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.

Henry James

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance... and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

Henry James

We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

Henry James

Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that what have you had?

Henry James

Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats; all human life is there.

Henry James

It's a complex fate, being an American, and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe.

Henry James

Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.

Henry James

A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals.

Henry James

I adore adverbs; they are the only qualifications I really much respect.

Henry James

Life is a predicament which precedes death.

Henry James

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

Henry James

I think I don't regret a single 'excess' of my responsive youth - I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace.

Henry James

The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.

Henry James

Though there are some disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors.

Henry James