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We work in the dark -- we do what we can -- we give what we have.

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
Dark
Give
Giving
Work

More quotes by Henry James

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I could come back to America..to die..but never, never to live.
Henry James
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It's never permitted to be surprised at the aberrations of born fools.
Henry James
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The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be . . .
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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There are two kinds of taste, the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition.
Henry James
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If you haven't had your life what have you had?
Henry James
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England always seems to me like a man swimming with his clothes on his head.
Henry James
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You think too much.' 'I suppose I do but I can’t help it, my mind is so terribly active. When I give myself, I give myself. I pay the penalty in my headaches, my famous headaches--a perfect circlet of pain! But I carry it as a queen carries her crown.
Henry James
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What is either a picture or a novel that is not character?
Henry James
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The time-honored bread-sauce of the happy ending.
Henry James
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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.
Henry James
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He was there or was not there: not there if I didn't see him.
Henry James
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You wanted to look at life for yourself - but you were not allowed you were punished for your wish. You were ground in the very mill of the conventional.
Henry James
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All the same don't forget that you're young — blessedly young be glad of it on the contrary and live up to it. 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.
Henry James
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A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals.
Henry James
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Cats and monkeys monkeys and cats all human life is there.
Henry James
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Adjectives are the sugar of literature and adverbs the salt.
Henry James
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An Englishman's never so natural as when he's holding his tongue.
Henry James
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Art is nothing more than the shadow of humanity.
Henry James
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Any point of view is interesting that is a direct impression of life. You each have an impression colored by your individual conditions make that into a picture, a picture framed by your own personal wisdom, your glimpse of the American world.
Henry James