His idea was simply what a man's idea always is--to put every effort off on the woman. - Henry James
I feel how little she can like being told of her owing me anything. No woman ever enjoys such an obligation to another woman. - Henry James
She had fortunately always her appetite for news. The pure flame of the disinterested burned in her cave of treasures as a lamp in a Byzantine vault. - Henry James
It's time to start living the life you've imagined. - Henry James
It had been agreed between them that lighted candles at wayside inns, in strange countries amid mountain scenery, gave the evening meal a peculiar poetry. - 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
It has been my fate, and one's fate one accepts. It's a dreadful thing to have to say, in so wicked a world. - Henry James
For the worst sign of all--as I must have it for you-- is that you can't help me. That's when a woman pities. - Henry James
Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language. - Henry James
I don't want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did. - Henry James
Life is a predicament which precedes death. - 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
There are women who are for all your 'times of life.' They're the most wonderful sort. - Henry James
Small and fat and constantly facetious, straw- coloured and destitute of marks, he would have been practically indistinguishable hadn't his constant preference for light-grey clothes, for white hats, for very big cigars and very little stories, done what it could for his identity. - Henry James
Sorrow comes in great waves...but rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us, it leaves us. And we know that if it is strong, we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. - Henry James
Deep experience is never peaceful. - Henry James
To take what there is in life and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived, to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that; this, doubtless, is the right way to live. - Henry James
It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, and I know of no substitute for the force and beauty of it's process. - Henry James
De dragul vieţii, trebuie să ne creăm propriul antidot împotriva realităţii - Henry James
She was a woman who, between courses, could be graceful with her elbows on the table. - Henry James
She had an unequalled gift... of squeezing big mistakes into small opportunities. - Henry James
Even when a thing's already nice there mostly is some other thing that would have been nicer - or as to which we wonder if it wouldn't. - Henry James
Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself. - Henry James
Be generous, be delicate, and always pursue the prize. - Henry James
The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have. - Henry James
People can be in general pretty well trusted, of course--with the clock of their freedom ticking as loud as it seems to do here--to keep an eye on the fleeting hour. - Henry James
There are three things that are important in human life. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind. - Henry James
Summer afternoon-summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. - Henry James
Criticism talks a good deal of nonsense, but even its nonsense is a useful force. It keeps the question of art before the world, insists upon its importance. - 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
It has not been a successful life.''No -- it has only been a beautiful one. - Henry James
Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. - Henry James
I should think that to hear such lovely music as that would really make him feel better. The lady gave a discriminating smile. I am afraid there are moments in life when even Beethoven has nothing to say to us. We must admit, however, that they are our worst moments. - Henry James
Thank goodness you're a failure-- it's why I so distinguish you! Anything else to-day is too hideous. Look about you--look at the successes. Would you BE one, on your honour? - Henry James
He had the entertainment of thinking that if he had for that moment stopped the clock it was to promote the next minute this still livelier motion. - Henry James
It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature. - Henry James
I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them. - 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
Obstacles are those frightening things you see when you take you eyes off your goal. - Henry James
She was a coquette; he was sure she had a spirit of her own; but in her bright, sweet, superficial little visage there was no mockery, no irony. Before long it became obvious that she was much disposed towards conversation. - Henry James
Thanks to his constant habit of shaking the bottle in which life handed him the wine of experience, he presently found the taste of the lees rising as usual into his draught. - Henry James
Try to be someone upon whom nothing is lost! - Henry James
Be not afraid of life believe that life is worth living and your belief will create the fact. - Henry James
There are two kinds of taste in the appreciation of imaginative literature: the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition. - Henry James
It struck him really that he had never so lived with her as during this period of her silence; the silence was a sacred hush, a finer clearer medium, in which her idiosyncrasies showed. - Henry James
"There are certainly moments," said Chad, "when you seem to me too good to be true. Yet if you are true," he added, "that seems to be all that need concern me." - Henry James
It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self- conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations are in a conspiracy to under-value them. - Henry James
Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats; all human life is there. - Henry James
You were reserved for my future - 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