Quotes from Henry James

But we've so befogged and befouled the whole question of liberty, of spontaneity, of good humor, and inclination, and enjoyment, that there's nothing that makes people stare so as to see one natural

ignis fatuus.

She knew even intimate things about him that he hadn't yet told her and perhaps never would. He wasn't unaware that he had told her rather remarkably many for the time, but these were not the real ones. Some of the real ones, however, precisely, were what she knew.

Sorrow comes in great waves—no one can know that better than you—but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain.

If a few more people felt badly, in this sodden, stolid, stupid race of ours, the world would wake up to an idea or two, and we should see the begininng of the dance.

She wondered why a prison should have such an evil face if it was erected in the interest of justice and order–an expression of the righteous forces of society.

He found all things come back to the question of what he personally might have been, how he might have led his life and turned out, if he had not so, at the outset, given it up.

The light was in her eyes.

This appeared to impress her, and she branched off to remark, with an irrelevance that characterised her, that she didn't care anything about a man's family if she liked the man himself; she thought families were played out.

I am convinced that we are living in a fool's paradise, that the ground is heaving under our feet. It's not the ground my dear; it's you that are turning somersaults, Madame Grandoni interposed. Ah, you, my friend, you have the happy faculty of believing what you like to believe. I have to believe what I see.

I believe those that are on top the heap are better than those that are under it, that they mean to stay here, and that if they are not a pack of poltroons they will.

She answered that she liked standing up and

Art indeed in our day has taken on so many honors and emoluments that the recognition of its importance is more than a custom, has become on occasion almost a fury: the line is drawn--especially in the English world--only in the importance of heeding what it may mean.

Habe keine Angst vor dem Leben. Glaube daran, dass das Leben lebenswert ist und dein Glaube wird helfen Tatsachen zu schaffen.

Haven't you kept anything? Hyacinth went on, without heeding this challenge. She looked at him a moment. I have kept you!

But, after all, the opinions of our friends are not what we love them for, and therefore I don't see why they should be what we hate them for.

What could be a happier gift in a companion than a quick, fanciful mind which saved one repetitions and reflected one's thought on a polished, elegant surface?

There is life and life, and as waste is only life sacrificed and thereby prevented from counting, I delight in a deep breathing economy and an organic form.

grave inconvenience, they would incur. This would give a sense--which the spirit required, rather ached and sighed in the absence of--that somebody was paying something somewhere and somehow, that they were at least not all floating together on the silver stream of impunity.

They were in presence of Chad himself.

orele de aur se scurgeau, plantele sorbeau lumina, enigmaticul vechi palat p?lea ca ceara È™i pe urm?, cînd soarele sc?p?ta, începea s? se împurpureze, iar foile mele foÈ™neau în briza r?t?citoare a Adriaticei.

Ah his idea was simply what a man's idea always is—to put every effort off on the woman.

It's to be something you're merely to suffer? Well, say to wait for--to have to meet, to face, to see suddenly break out in my life; possibly destroying all further consciousness, possibly annihilating me; possibly, on the other hand, only altering everything, striking at the root of all my world and leaving me to the consequences, however they shape themselves.

Nu se pref?cu c? se afla acolo din întîmplare; în spontaneitatea ei colÈ›uroas?, neîncrez?toare, nu înc?peau asemenea artificii.