Henry James quotes

Life is a predicament which precedes death.

However British you may be, I am more British still.

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance... and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.

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.

We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

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.

In art economy is always beauty.

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

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

Deep experience is never peaceful.

The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.

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.

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.

We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

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.

A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals.

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

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