Quotes from Henry James

Nothing could be happier, in general, than to seem dazzling, but she had a perverse unwillingness to glitter by arrangement.

The more information one has about one's dangers the better.

Ah, things are always different from what they might be," said the old man. "If you wait for them to change you'll never do anything.

fast ones, if you're impatient." She was silent a little after which she brought out: "Oh I guess it'll be fast enough!

If you decline to understand me I wholly decline to understand you.

was all very interesting." She continued to look at me.  "You don't think that," she then simply stated. "What have I to gain

He comes to loos at one's daughter as if she were a suite of apartments; he tries the door-handles and looks out of the windows, raps on the walls and almost thinks he'll take the place. Will you be so good as to draw up a lease? Then, on the whole, he decides that the rooms are too small; he doesn't think he could live on a third floor; he must look out for a piano nobile. And he does away after having got a month's lodging in the poor little apartment for nothing.

I don't believe they're very nice to girls; they're not nice to them in the novels.

What had come to pass within his walls lingered there as an obsession importunate to all his senses; it lived again, as a cluster of pleasant memories, at every hour and in every object; it made everything but itself irrelevant and tasteless. It remained, in a word, a conscious watchful presence, active on its own side, forever to be reckoned with, in face of which the effort at detachment was scarcely less futile than frivolous.

He comes and looks at one's daughter as if she were a suite of apartments; he tries the door-handles and looks out of the windows, raps on the walls and almost thinks he'll take the place. Will you be so good as to draw up a lease? Then, on the whole, he decides that the rooms are too small; he doesn't think he could live on a third floor; he must look out for a piano nobile. And he does away after having got a month's lodging in the poor little apartment for nothing.

I don't see what harm there is in my wishing not to tie myself. I don't want to begin life by marrying. There are other things a woman can do.

It's out of all reason, the number of things you think wrong. Put back your watch. Diet your fever. Spread your wings; rise above the ground. It's never wrong to do that. She

But for me there are only two classes: the people I trust and the people I don't.

You're capable of anything, you and Osmond. I don't mean Osmond by himself, and I don't mean you by yourself. But together you're dangerous — like some chemical combination.

He comes and looks at one's daughter as if she were a suite of apartments; he tries the door-handles and looks out of the windows, raps on the walls and almost thinks he'll take the place. Will you be so good as to draw up a lease? Then, on the whole, he decides that the rooms are too small; he doesn't think he could live on a third floor; he must look out for a piano nobile. And he goes away after having got a month's lodging in the poor little apartment for nothing.

Oh dear, I'm quite alone, I've nothing on earth to do.

He had brought home to her, and always by remarks that were really quite soundless, the conception, hitherto ungrapsed, of some complete use of her wealth itself, some use of it as a counter-move to fate.

It is very wrong to make love to a woman who is engaged, but it is very wrong not to make love to a woman who is married.

Recibí su beso y, mientras lo estrechaba un momento entre mis brazos, tuve que hacer el más enorme esfuerzo para no llorar.

You could criticise any marriage; it was the essence of a marriage to be criticism.

If you've not good servants you're miserable, Mrs. Touchett serenely said. They're very bad in America, but I've five perfect ones in Florence. I don't see what you want with five, Henrietta couldn't help observing. I don't think I should like to see five persons surrounding me in that menial position. I like them in that position better than in some others, proclaimed Mrs. Touchett with much meaning. Should you like me better if I were your butler, dear? her husband asked.

At a time when his thoughts had been a good deal of a burden to him her sudden arrival, which promised nothing and was an open-handed gift of fate, had refreshed and quickened them, given them wings and something to fly for. Poor Ralph had been for many weeks steeped in melancholy; his outlook, habitually somber, lay under the shadow of a deeper cloud.

The broken charm of the world about was broken into smaller pieces.

Deep in her soul—it was the deepest thing there—lay a belief that if a certain light should dawn she could give herself completely; but this image, on the whole, was too formidable to be attractive.