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There were several ways of understanding her: there was what she said, and there was what she meant, and there was something between the two, that was neither.

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
Neither
Ways
Understanding
Two
Something
Way
Several
Oneself
Meant

More quotes by Henry James

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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.
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do you think it is better to be clever than to be good?” “Good for what?” asked the Doctor. “You are good for nothing unless you are clever.
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You are good for nothing unless you are clever.
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I adore adverbs they are the only qualifications I really much respect.
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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.
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It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.
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To say that she had a book is to say that her solitude did not press upon her for her love of knowledge had a fertilizing quality and her imagination was strong. There was at this time, however, a want of lightness in her situation, which the arrival of an unexpected visitor did much to dispel.
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The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.
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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.
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Art without life is a poor affair.
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Deep experience is never peaceful.
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Art does not lie in copying nature.- Nature furnishes the material by means of which is to express a beauty still unexpressed in nature.-The artist beholds in nature more than she herself is conscious of.
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London is on the whole the most possible form of life.
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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 . . .
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She had an immense curiosity about life, and was constantly staring and wondering.
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Excellence does not require perfection.
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Things are always different than what they might be...If you wait for them to change, you will never do anything.
Henry James
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Always keep a window in the attic open not just cracked: open.
Henry James
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God's creature is one. He makes man, not men. His true creature is unitary and infinite, revealing himself, indeed, in every finite form, but compromised by none.
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Adjectives are the sugar of literature and adverbs the salt.
Henry James