“Intelligent, unscrupulous, determined, and capable of seeing a man strangled without changing color.”
― Henry James, quote from The American
“The truth is that circumstances had done much to cultivate in Mrs. Tristram a marked tendency to irony. Her taste on many points differed from that of her husband, and though she made frequent concessions it must be confessed that her concessions were not always graceful. They were founded upon a vague project she had of some day doing something very positive, something a trifle passionate. What she meant to do she could by no means have told you; but meanwhile, nevertheless, she was buying a good conscience, by installments.”
― Henry James, quote from The American
“One's theories, after all, matter little, it is one's humor that is the great thing.”
― Henry James, quote from The American
“He himself was almost never bored, and there was no man with whom it would have been a greater mistake to suppose that silence meant displeasure.”
― Henry James, quote from The American
“The church was simply the former chapel of the castle, fronting upon its grass-grown court, which, however, was of generous enough width to have given up its quaintest corner to a little graveyard. Here the very headstones themselves seemed to sleep, as they slanted into the grass.”
― Henry James, quote from The American
“When you are embarrassed, do as you think best, and you will do very well. When you are in a difficulty, judge for yourself.”
― Henry James, quote from The American
“You will think you take generous views of her; but you will never begin to know through what a strange sea of feeling she passed before she accepted you. As she stood there in front of you the other day, she plunged into it. She said 'Why not?' to something which, a few hours earlier, had been inconceivable. She turned about on a thousand gathered prejudices and traditions as on a pivot, and looked where she had never looked hitherto.”
― Henry James, quote from The American
“He was holding his breath so as not to inhale the odor of democracy.”
― Henry James, quote from The American
“The place suggested a convent with the modern improvements—an asylum in which privacy, though unbroken, might be not quite identical with privation, and meditation, though monotonous, might be of a cheerful cast.”
― Henry James, quote from The American
Henry James
Born place: in New York, New York, The United States
Born date April 15, 1843
See more on GoodReads
“Stubama i dolje. Ni zvuka odozdo. Znači kasno je. Dobro. Još jedan dan, a još smo živi. Možda čak i malo mudriji. Dovoljno mudri da bismo shvatili da mnoge stvari još ne znamo. Doduše, imamo nadu.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from The Hand of Oberon
“Indeed, the lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? Years of bells will condition all but the strongest to a world that can no longer offer important work to do. Bells are the secret logic of school time; their logic is inexorable. Bells destroy the past and future, rendering every interval the same as any other, as the abstraction of a map renders every living mountain and river the same, even though they are not. Bells inoculate each undertaking with indifference.”
― John Taylor Gatto, quote from Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Education
“If ever Scott Fitzgerald needed evidence to substantiate his aphorism that “the very rich…are different from you and me,” it was here in spades in this portrait gallery of extravagant crazies that is the unique saga of the Vanderbilt family.”
― quote from Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt
“But I have never been sure that we are all talking about the same thing when we talk about love. Perhaps real love is too boring to talk about. Heartbreak is so much easier to understand that I think we might sometimes employ it as an understudy, a stand-in for the real thing.”
― Nell Freudenberger, quote from The Dissident
“MY ASS IS WORTH MORE THAN YOUR INCONVENIENCE ... that's my response to anyone opposed to universal background checks. If Ted Nugent has to wait three days because his wife wants a Howitzer for the backyard -- tough shit! If a background check keeps ONE gun out of the hands of ONE maniac thereby saving MY ass, it's worth it. May sound a bit selfish, but I'd hope you're equally fond of your own ass.”
― Quentin R. Bufogle, quote from Horse Latitudes
At Home: A Short His...
The Long Earth
The Notebook, The Pr...
The Persian Boy
Mistborn
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
