Henry James Quotes & Quotations

Henry James Quotes

» Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats; all human life is there.

» 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 of the earth are in a conspiracy to under value them.

» No sovereign, no court, no personal loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old country-houses, nor parsonages, nor thatched cottages nor ivied ruins; no cathedrals, nor abbeys, nor little Norman churches; no great Universities nor public schools -- no Oxford, nor Eton, nor Harrow; no literature, no novels, no museums, no pictures, no political society, no sporting class -- no Epsom nor Ascot! Some such list as that might be drawn up of the absent things in American life.

» The face of nature and civilization in this our country is to a certain point a very sufficient literary field. But it will yield its secrets only to a really grasping imagination. To write well and worthily of American things one need even more than elsewhere to be a master.

» If I were to live my life over again, I would be an American. I would steep myself in America, I would know no other land.

» 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.

» What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?

» One might enumerate the items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left.

» People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.

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