"Don’t underestimate the value of irony—it is extremely valuable."
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Quote collection
Henry James quotes (page 5 of 13)
251 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"He is the same old sausage, fizzing and sputtering in his own grease."
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"In art economy is always beauty."
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"It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition."
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"An Englishman's never so natural as when he's holding his tongue."
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"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."
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"He was there or was not there: not there if I didn't see him."
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"New York is appalling, fantastically charmless and elaborately dire."
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"To read between the lines was easier than to follow the text."
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"Oxford lends sweetness to labour and dignity to leisure."
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"Of course you're always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as critics, however, and you'll condemn them all!"
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"It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life."
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"The time-honored bread-sauce of the happy ending."
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"The fatal futility of Fact."
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"It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance."
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"It is altogether an extraordinary growing, swarming, glittering, pushing, chattering, good-natured, cosmopolitan place, and perhaps in some ways the best imitation of Paris that can be found (with a great originality of its own)."
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"London doesn't love the latent or the lurking, has neither time, nor taste, nor sense for anything less discernible than the red flag in front of the steam-roller. It wants cash over the counter and letters ten feet high."
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"Love has nothing to do with good reasons."
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"What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?"
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"If one is strong, one loves the more strongly."
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