Henry James

Deep experience is never peaceful.

Henry James

Don’t try so much to form your character – it’s like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose. Live as you like best and your character will take care of itself.

Henry James

England always seems to me like a man swimming with his clothes on his head.

Henry James

Europe was best described, to his mind, as an elaborate engine for dissociating the confined American from that indispensable knowledge, and was accordingly only rendered bearable by these occasional stations of relief, traps for the arrest of wandering western airs.

Henry James

Every good story is of course both a picture and an idea, and the more they are interfused the better.

Henry James

Fear, unfortunately, is a very big thing, and there’s a great variety of kinds.

Henry James

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.

Henry James

He would rather seem stupid any day than fatuous.

Henry James

He’s the victim of a critical age; he has ceased to believe in himself and he doesn’t know what to believe in.

Henry James

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

Henry James