James Agee Quotes

Quotes about:

• In every child who is born, no matter what circumstances, and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again: and in him, too, once more, and of each of us, our terrific responsibility toward human life; toward the utmost idea of goodness, of the horror of terror, and of God.

  James Agee

  Life, Peace, Children

  James Agee, Walker Evans (2001). “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families”, p.255, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  60 Copy quote

• And a human being whose life is nurtured in an advantage which has accrued from the disadvantage of other human beings, and who prefers that this should remain as it is, is a human being by definition only, having much more in common with the bedbug, the tapeworm, the cancer, and the scavengers of the deep sea.

  James Agee

  Cancer, Sea, Definitions

  James Agee (2013). “Cotton Tenants: Three Families”, p.21, Melville House

  31 Copy quote

• You've got to bear it in mind that nobody that ever lived is specially privileged; the axe can fall at any moment, on any neck, without any warning or any regard for justice. You've got to keep your mind off pitying your own rotten luck and setting up any kind of a howl about it. You've got to remember that things as bad as this and a hell of a lot worse have happened to millions of people before and that they've come through it and that you will too.

  James Agee

  Fall, People, Justice

  James Agee (2008). “A Death in the Family”, p.115, Penguin

  30 Copy quote

• The mere attempt to examine my own confusion would consume volumes.

  James Agee

  Confusion, Confusing, Volume

  James Agee (2005). “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: A Death in the Family, & Shorter Fiction”

  28 Copy quote

• The goal is the same: life itself; and the price is the same; life itself.

  James Agee

  Life, Goal, Addiction

  30 Copy quote

• You must be in tune with the times and prepared to break with tradition.

  James Agee

  Time, Preparation, Tunes

  27 Copy quote

• Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.

  James Agee

  Lying, Errors, Littles

  12 Copy quote

• The artist's task is not to alter the world as the eye sees it into a world of aesthetic reality, but to perceive the aesthetic reality within the actual reality. (On photographs by Helen Levitt)

  James Agee

  Eye, Artist, Reality

  Helen Levitt, James Agee (1989). “A way of seeing”

  26 Copy quote

• How far we all come. How far we all come away from ourselves. So far, so much between, you can never go home again. You can go home, it's good to go home, but you never really get all the way home again in your life.
  ...
  whatever it was and however good it was, it wasn't what you once had been, and had lost, and could never have again, and once in a while, once in a long time, you remembered, and knew how far you were away, and it hit you hard enough, that little while it lasted, to break your heart.

  James Agee

  Home, Heart, Long

  8 Copy quote

• It's kind of a test, Mary, and it's the only kind that amounts to anything. When something rotten like this happens, then you have your choice. You start to really be alive, or you start to die. That's all.

  James Agee

  Adversity, Choices, Rotten

  James Agee (2008). “A Death in the Family”, p.115, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• Some people get where they hope to in this world. Most of us don't.

  James Agee

  People, World, This World

  James Agee (2008). “A Death in the Family”, p.216, Penguin

  18 Copy quote

• A mother never realizes that her children are no longer children.

  James Agee

  Mom, Mother, Children

  17 Copy quote

• As a whole part of "psychological education" it needs to be remembered that a neurosis can be valuable; also that "adjustment" to a sick and insane environment is of itself not "health" but sickness and insanity.

  James Agee

  Education, Sick, Insanity

  James Agee, Walker Evans (2001). “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families”, p.274, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

• You've got to bear it in mind that nobody that ever lived is specially privileged; the axe can fall at any moment, on any neck, without any warning or any regard for justice.

  James Agee

  Fall, Justice, Risk

  James Agee (2008). “A Death in the Family”, p.115, Penguin

  20 Copy quote

• The camera seems to me, next to unassisted and weaponless consciousness, the central instrument of our time.

  James Agee

  Cameras, Next, Consciousness

  James Agee, Walker Evans (2001). “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families”, p.9, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  16 Copy quote

• And somewhat as in blind night, on a mild sea, a sailor may be made aware of an iceberg, fanged and mortal, bearing invisibly near, by the unwarned charm of its breath, nothingness now revealed itself: that permanent night upon which the stars in their expiring generations are less than the glinting of gnats, and nebulae, more trivial than winter breath; that darkness in which eternity lies bent and pale, a dead snake in a jar, and infinity is the sparkling of a wren blown out to sea; that inconceivable chasm of invulnerable silence in which cataclysms of galaxies rave mute as amber.

  James Agee

  Stars, Lying, Winter

  James Agee (2008). “A Death in the Family”, p.66, Penguin

  12 Copy quote

• Isn’t every human being both a scientist and an artist; and in writing of human experience, isn’t there a good deal to be said for recognizing that fact and for using both methods?

  James Agee

  Writing, Artist, Facts

  James Agee (2005). “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: A Death in the Family, & Shorter Fiction”

  21 Copy quote

• I know the most important faculty to develop is one for hard, continuous and varied work and living; but the difference between knowing this and doing anything consistent about it is often abysmal.

  James Agee

  Differences, Knowing, Important

  12 Copy quote

• The deadliest blow the enemy of the human soul can strike is to do fury honor. . . . Official acceptance is the one unmistakable symptom that salvation is beaten again, and is the one surest sign of fatal misunderstanding, and is the kiss of Judas.

  James Agee

  Acceptance, Kissing, Blow

  James Agee, Walker Evans (2001). “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families”, p.12, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

• For in the immediate world, everything is to be discerned, for him who can discern it, and central and simply, without either dissection into science, or digestion into art, but with the whole of consciousness, seeking to perceive it as it stands: so that the aspect of a street in sunlight can roar in the heart of itself as a symphony, perhaps as no symphony can: and all of consciousness is shifted from the imagined, the revisive, to the effort to perceive simply the cruel radiation of what is.

  James Agee

  Art, Symphony, Effort

  18 Copy quote

• It is clear enough by now to most people that the camera never lies is a foolish saying. Yet it is doubtful whether most people realize how extraordinarily slippery a liar the camera is.

  James Agee

  Liars, Lying, People

  Helen Levitt, James Agee (1989). “A way of seeing”

  4 Copy quote

• As small, quick, foolproof cameras became generally available, moreover, the camera has been used so much and so flabbily by so many people that it has acted as a sort of contraceptive on the ability to see.

  James Agee

  People, Cameras, Used

  Helen Levitt, James Agee (1989). “A way of seeing”

  11 Copy quote

• The camera is just a machine, which records with impressive and as a rule very cruel faithfulness.

  James Agee

  Cameras, Machines, Records

  Helen Levitt, James Agee (1989). “A way of seeing”

  4 Copy quote

• And no matter what, there's not one thing in this world *or* the next that we can do or hope or guess at or wish or pray that can change it or help it one iota. Because whatever is, is. That's all. And all there is now is to be ready for it, strong enough for it, whatever it may be. That's all. That's all that matters. It's all that matters because it's all that's possible.

  James Agee

  Strong, Wish, Next

  James Agee (2008). “A Death in the Family”, p.99, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

• Well, now, some people learn a little quicker than others. It's nice to learn fast but it's nice to take your time too.

  James Agee

  Nice, People, Littles

  James Agee (2008). “A Death in the Family”, p.215, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

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