Henry James, The Portrait Of A Lady Quotes

She had an immense curiosity about life, and was constantly staring and wondering.

Her reputation for reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic.

There's no more usual basis of union than mutual misunderstanding.

I never did anything in life to anyone's imagination.

The finer natures were those that shone at the larger times.

It's not my fate to give up--I know it can't be.

One never said the things one wanted — one remembered them all an hour afterwards. On the other hand one usually said a lot of things one shouldn't, simply from a sense that one had to say something.