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Adjectives are the sugar of literature and adverbs the salt.

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
Adverbs
Adjectives
Salt
Sugar
Literature

More quotes by Henry James

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I adore adverbs they are the only qualifications I really much respect.
Henry James
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She is written in a foreign tongue.
Henry James
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The faculty of attention has utterly vanished from the Anglo-Saxon mind, extinguished at its source by the big bayad?re of journalism, of the newspaper and the picture magazine which keeps screaming, Look at me. Illustrations, loud simplifications... bill poster advertising ? only these stand a chance.
Henry James
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It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.
Henry James
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She had an immense curiosity about life, and was constantly staring and wondering.
Henry James
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I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of an artistic process.
Henry James
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It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance.
Henry James
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Autobiography may be the preeminent kind of American expression.
Henry James
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It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.
Henry James
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If you haven't had your life what have you had?
Henry James
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It's a complex fate, being an American, and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe.
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.
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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It was the way the autumn day looked into the high windows as it waned the way the red light, breaking at the close from under a low sombre sky, reached out in a long shaft and played over old wainscots, old tapestry, old gold, old colour.
Henry James
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She was a woman who, between courses, could be graceful with her elbows on the table.
Henry James
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Until you try, you don't know what you can't do.
Henry James
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Her chief dread in life, at this period of her development, was that she would appear narrow minded what she feared next afterwards was that she should be so.
Henry James
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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.
Henry James
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There's no more usual basis of union than mutual misunderstanding.
Henry James
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Americans will eat garbage provided you sprinkle it liberally with ketchup.
Henry James