Quotes from Henry James

She had taken his measure; he was made incorrigibly to try, irredeemably to fail – to be, in short, eternally defeated and eternally unaware. He wouldn't rage he couldn't, for the citadel might, in that case, have been carried by his assault; he would only spend his life in walking round and round it, asking everyone he met how in the name of goodness one did get in.

Per me, soggiunse, - uno può amare una cosa o non amarla, non si può amar tutto, evidentemente: ma non si può neppur tentare di farsene una ragione, non si sa dove questo possa condurre. Ci son sentimenti buoni che possono avere cattivissime ragioni. non vi pare, e cattivi che ne vantano di buonissime.

A great many people give me the impression of never having for a moment felt anything.

la passione amorosa separa terribilmente le sue vittime da tutti, tranne che dall'oggetto amoroso

Chiamo ricca la gente ch'è in grado di realizzare gl'impulsi della propria immaginazione.

She longed for opportunities, but these were not the opportunities she meant.

Before me and beside me sat a row of the comeliest young men, clad in black gowns and wearing on their shoulders long hoods trimmed in white fur. Who and what they were I know not, for I preferred not to learn, lest by chance they should not be so mediaeval as they looked.

on so short an acquaintance remains shut up in his breast.  His mother, I know, went to his door

The world lay before her—she could do whatever she chose. There was a deep thrill in it all, but for the present her choice was tolerably discreet […].

One need not be a rabid Anglican to be extremely sensible to the charm of an English country church...

She was glad to pause, however, on the edge of this larger adventure; there was such a thrill even in the preliminary hovering.

It was the hushed daybreak of the Roman revelation in particular that he could usually best recover – the way that there above all, where the princes and popes had been before him, his divination of his faculty had gone to his head. He

the sudden hour that had transformed his life, the hour of his perceiving with a mute inward gasp akin to the low moan of apprehensive passion that a world was left him to conquer and that he might conquer it if he tried. It

He envied Miss Barrace at any rate her power of not being.

It was in her disposition at all times to lose faith in the reality of absent things; she could summon back her faith, in case of need, with with an effort, but the effort was often painful even when the reality had been pleasant. The past was apt to look dead and its revival rather to show the livid light of a judgement-day.

He had seen the follies of the romantic disposition, but there seemed somehow no follies in theirs – nothing, one was obliged to recognise, but innocent pleasures, pleasures without penalties.

You were reserved for my future

I'm perfectly aware, for instance, that you know good society from bad. Society is all bad.

However much you might watch me I should be watching you more.

She has a sort of old-fashioned character that's passing away — a vivid identity.

And the figure of the income he had arrived at had never been high enough to look any one in the face.

muddle of farewells before we put off; we talked a little about the boat, our fellow-passengers and our prospects, and then I said: "I think you mentioned last night a name I know—that of Mr. Porterfield." "Oh no I didn't!

To live in such a place was, for Isabel, to hold to her ear all day a shell of the sea of the past. This vague eternal rumor kept her imagination awake.

But will they make themselves agreeable to me? That's what I like people to do. I don't hesitate to say so, because I always appreciate it.