Quotes from Henry James

I cling to some saving romance in things.

Her nature had, in her conceit, a certain garden-like quality, a suggestion of perfume and murmuring boughs, of shady bowers and lengthening vistas, which made her feel that introspection was, after all, an exercise in the open air, and that a visit to the recesses of one's spirit was harmless when one returned from it with a lapful of roses.

The" thing was the thing that implied the greatest number of other things of the sort he had had to tackle; and it was queer of course, but so it was—the implication here was complete. Not

There are gentlemen in plenty who would be glad to stop your mouth by kissing you!

Suddenly she said to him with extraordinary beauty: I engage myself to you forever. The beauty was in everything, and he could have separated nothing—couldn't have thought of her face as distinct from the whole joy. Yet her face had a new light. And I pledge you—I call God to witness!—every spark of my faith; I give you every drop of my life.

It takes a great deal to make a successful American, but to make a happy Venetian takes only a handful of quick sensibility. The

It's you who draw me out. I exist in you. Not in others.

Of course you mean that I'm meddling in what doesn't concern me. But why shouldn't I speak to you of this matter without annoying you or embarrassing myself? What's the use of being your cousin if I can't have a few privileges? What's the use of adoring you without hope of a reward if I can't have a few compensations? What's the use of being ill and disabled and restricted to mere spectatorship at the game of life if I really can't see the show when I've paid so much for my ticket?

Oh, I hoped there would be a lord; it's just like a novel!

The end of everything was at hand; it seemed to him he could stretch out his arm and touch the goal. But he wanted to die at home — to extend himself in the large quiet room where he had last seen his father lie, and close his eyes upon the summer dawn.

in the August night and the perspective of Beacon

You've got no excuse for being bored anywhere. When I was your age I had never heard of such a thing.

I see you want us all to go. I don't know what you want to do. I want to be alone, said Isabel.

Nu te mai stradui atat sa-ti formezi un caracter - e ca si cand ai incerca sa deschizi petalele unui boboc crud de trandafir. Traieste cum iti place, iar caracterul tau va avea singur grija de el.

little and then gone back.  Miss Mavis hadn't turned up—and she didn't turn up.  The stewardess began to look for her—she hadn't been seen on deck or in the saloon.  Besides, she wasn't dressed—not to show herself; all her clothes were in her

Forbidden ground was the question of the return of the dead in general and of whatever, in especial, might survive, in memory, of the friends little children had lost.

The Brighton air used of old to make plain girls pretty and pretty girls prettier still - I don't know whether it works the spell now. (Sir Edmund Orme)

Besides, I try to judge things for myself; to judge wrong, I think, is more honourable than not to judge at all. I don't wish to be a mere sheep in the flock; I wish to choose my fate and know something of human affairs beyond what other people think it compatible with propriety to tell me.

she would have been as smooth to his general need of her as handled ivory to the palm.

I recall this passage as the hour of its first fully coming over me that she was a beautiful liberal creature. I had seen her personality in glimpses and gleams, like a song sung in snatches, but now it was before me in a large rosy glow, as if it had been a full volume of sound. I heard the whole of the air, and it was sweet fresh music, which I was often to hum over. (Sir Edmund Orme)

We've played our dreadful game, and we've lost. We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our feeling for ourselves and for each other, not to wait another day.

My dear man, what has happened to you? Well, that I can bear it no longer. That's simply what has happened. Something has snapped, has broken in me, and here I am. It's as I am that you must have me.

Oh, handsome—very, very," I insisted; "wonderfully handsome. But infamous." She slowly came back to me. "Miss Jessel—was infamous." She once more took my hand in both her own, holding it as tight as if to fortify me against the increase of alarm I might draw from this disclosure. "They were both infamous," she finally said.

Mrs. Gotch a wide berth—I couldn't talk to them.  I could