Henry James
American and British writer (1843–1916)
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- It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.
- It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.
- The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.
- Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats; all human life is there.
- Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.
- She was a woman who, between courses, could be graceful with her elbows on the table.
- Be generous, be delicate, and always pursue the prize.
- It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.
- There are women who are for all your 'times of life.' They're the most wonderful sort.
- 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.
- 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?
- I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.
- She had an unequalled gift... of squeezing big mistakes into small opportunities.
- 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.
- Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language.