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Her reputation for reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic.

Henry James

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Henry James
Age: 73 †
Born: 1843
Born: January 1
Died: 1916
Died: January 1
Contributing Editor
Literary Critic
Novelist
Playwright
Poet Lawyer
Screenwriter
Short Story Writer
Writer
New York City
New York
Henricus James
Goddess
Hung
Reputation
Deal
Deals
Envelope
Reading
Cloudy
Great
Envelopes
Like
Epic

More quotes by Henry James

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If I should certainly say to a novice, 'Write from experience and experience only,' I should feel that this was rather a tantalizing monition if I were not careful immediately to add, 'Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost.'
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Cats and monkeys monkeys and cats all human life is there.
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A solitary maple on a woodside flames in single scarlet, recalls nothing so much as the daughter of a noble house dressed for a fancy ball, with the whole family gathered around to admire her before she goes.
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It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance.
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I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of an artistic process.
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She had an immense curiosity about life, and was constantly staring and wondering.
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My sole wish is to frustrate as utterly as possible the post-mortem exploiter.
Henry James
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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.
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In art economy is always beauty.
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Always keep a window in the attic open not just cracked: open.
Henry James
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I have lived too long in foreign parts
Henry James
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To believe in a child is to believe in the future. Through their aspirations they will save the world. With their combined knowledge the turbulent seas of hate and injustice will be calmed.
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Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so.
Henry James
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One of my latest sensations was going to Lady Airlie's to hear Browning read his own poems - with the comport of finding that, at least, if you don't understand them, he himself apparently understands them even less. He read them as if he hated them and would like to bite them to pieces.
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Excellence does not require perfection.
Henry James
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His kiss was like white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed.
Henry James
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A swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads that one can’t see--that’s my idea of happiness.
Henry James
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I intend to judge things for myself to judge wrongly, I think, is more honorable than not to judge at all.
Henry James
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My idea is this, that when you only love a little you're naturally not jealous — or are only jealous also a little, so that it doesn't matter. But when you love in a deeper and intenser way, then you're in the very same proportion jealous your jealousy has intensity and, no doubt, ferocity.
Henry James
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Art without life is a poor affair.
Henry James