Henry James Quotes About Literature

Quotes about: Literature

• What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?

  Henry James

  Inspirational, Determination, Character

  "The Art of Fiction" (1884)

• It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.

  Henry James

  History, Historical, Literature

  Hawthorne ch. 1 (1879)

• Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

  Henry James

  Life, Tea Drinking, Coffee And Tea

  1881 The Portrait of a Lady, ch.1.

• It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.

  Henry James

  History, Tourism, Literature

  Henry James (1993). “Collected Travel Writings: Great Britain and America”, p.495, Library of America

• I adore adverbs; they are the only qualifications I really much respect.

  Henry James

  Literature, Adore, Adverbs

• Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.

  Henry James

  Money, Literature, Charming

  1881 Gilbert Osmond. The Portrait of a Lady, ch.35.

• Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue.

  Henry James

  Kindness, Air, Imperfection

  "The Art of Fiction" (1884)

• I think I don't regret a single 'excess' of my responsive youth - I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace.

  Henry James

  Birthday, Regret, Thinking

  Letter to Hugh Walpole, 21 Aug. 1913

• No sovereign, no court, no personal loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old country-houses, nor parsonages, nor thatched cottages nor ivied ruins no cathedrals, nor abbeys, nor little Norman churches no great Universities nor public schools -- no Oxford, nor Eton, nor Harrow no literature, no novels, no museums, no pictures, no political society, no sporting class -- no Epsom nor Ascot Some such list as that might be drawn up of the absent things in American life.

  Henry James

  Loyalty, Country, School

  'Hawthorne' (1879)

• The only success worth one's powder was success in the line of one's idiosyncrasy... what was talent but the art of being completely whatever one happened to be?

  Henry James

  Art, Congratulations, Literature

  Henry James (1996). “Complete Stories, 1892-1898”, p.496, Library of America

• If I were to live my life over again, I would be an American. I would steep myself in America, I would know no other land.

  Henry James

  Land, America, Would Be

  Henry James (1967). “Hawthorne”

• To kill a human being is, after all, the least injury you can do him.

  Henry James

  Literature, Injury, Humans

  'My Friend Bingham' (short story, 1867)

• 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

  Acceptance, Thinking, Self

  1879 Hawthorne, ch.6.

• The superiority of one man's opinion over another's is never so great as when the opinion is about a woman.

  Henry James

  Men, Judging, Literature

  1890 The Tragic Muse, ch.9.

• I hate American simplicity. I glory in the piling up of complications of every sort. If I could pronounce the name James in any different or more elaborate way I should be in favor of doing it.

  Henry James

  Hate, Names, Usa

  Henry James (1974). “Letters”, p.31, Harvard University Press

• He valued life and literature equally for the light they threw upon each other; to his mind one implied the other; he was unable to conceive of them apart.

  Henry James

  Light, Mind, Literature

  Henry James (1984). “Literary Criticism: French writers. Other European writers. The prefaces to the New York edition”, p.681, Library of America

• An Englishman's never so natural as when he's holding his tongue.

  Henry James

  Literature, Tongue, Holding On

  1881 Isabel Archer. The Portrait of a Lady, ch.10.

• I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme.

  Henry James

  Love, Writing, Literature

  Henry James (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry James (Illustrated)”, p.11956, Delphi Classics

• People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.

  Henry James

  Nice, People, Leave Me Alone

  1899 Nanda Brookenham. The Awkward Age, bk.6, ch.3.

• Adjectives are the sugar of literature and adverbs the salt.

  Henry James

  Adjectives, Literature, Sugar

  Henry James (2016). “Henry James: Autobiographies: A Small Boy and Others / Notes of a Son and Brother / The Middle Years / Other Writings: Library of America #274”, p.1142, Library of America

• The face of nature and civilization in this our country is to a certain point a very sufficient literary field. But it will yield its secrets only to a really grasping imagination. To write well and worthily of American things one need even more than elsewhere to be a master.

  Henry James

  Country, Writing, Yield

  Letter to Charles Eliot Norton, 16 Jan. 1871

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