Tag Archives: Henry James

Quotes About Communication

LitQuotes Blog Posted on by

Communication Quotes

The site has a large collection of literary quotes about communication.  These are some of my favorites.

In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs. ~ The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

“Old men only lie in wait for people to ask them to talk. Then they rattle on like a rusty elevator wheezing up a shaft.” ~ Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

Often I must speak other than I think. That is called diplomacy. ~ Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

“With no intention to take offence, I deny your right to put words into my mouth.” ~ Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. ~ The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

“Words,” said the host, at length, “is worse’n bullets. You never know what they’ll hit.” ~ The Night Horseman by Max Brand

Fair speech may hide a foul heart. ~ The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien

We are never half so interesting when we have learned that language is given us to enable us to conceal our thoughts. ~ Anne of the Island by Lucy Maud Montgomery

“I make no manner of doubt that you threw a very diamond of truth at me, though you see it hit me so directly in the face that it wasn’t exactly appreciated, at first.” ~ Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Never tell all you know—not even to the person you know best. ~ The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

Fine, large, meaningless, general terms like romance and business can always be related. They take the place of thinking, and are highly useful to optimists and lecturers. ~ The Job by Sinclair Lewis

The fool wonders, the wise man asks. ~ Count Alarcos: A Tragedy by Benjamin Disraeli

A slight throbbing about the temples told me that this discussion had reached saturation point. ~ Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

Mrs. Bittacy rustled ominously, holding her peace meanwhile. She feared long words she did not understand. Beelzebub lay hid among too many syllables. ~ The Man Whom the Trees Loved by Algernon Blackwood

To read between the lines was easier than to follow the text. ~ The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

More Quotes about Communication

5 Imagination Quotes from Literature

LitQuotes Blog Posted on by

Imagination QuotesIt was better to know the worst than to wonder. ~ Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

“You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.” ~ The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

My imagination requires a judicious rein; I am afraid to let it loose, for it carries me sometimes into appalling places beyond the stars and beneath the world. ~ The Listener by Algernon Blackwood

It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic. ~ The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe

“I call people rich when they’re able to meet the requirements of their imagination.” ~ The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

See More Imagination Quotes from Literature

Ten Quotes from Literature About Time

LitQuotes Blog Posted on by

Quotes About TimeThe old year is slipping away fast!  Where did the time go? Here are quotes about time from literature that may, or may not,  answer that question.

Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come. ~ A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin

We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. ~ The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” ~ The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare. ~ To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” ~ Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

You are here for but an instant, and you mustn’t take yourself too seriously. ~ The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs

That which is loved may pass, but love hath no end. ~ Parables Of A Province by Gilbert Parker

Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future. ~ The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

The right time is ANY time that one is still so lucky as to have. ~ The Ambassadors by Henry James

“The past and the present are within the field of my inquiry, but what a man may do in the future is a hard question to answer.” ~ The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

More Quotes From Literature About Time

 

Quotes About Superstition

LitQuotes Blog Posted on by

superstition quotes

At this time of the year, superstition seems like a timely thing to contemplate.

All men, however highly educated, retain some superstitious inklings. ~ The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells

All this disquisition upon superstition leads me up to the fact that Mr. Manson, our second mate, saw a ghost last night–or, at least, says that he did, which of course is the same thing. ~ The Captain of the Polestar by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

“Young men of this class never do anything for themselves that they can get other people to do for them, and it is the infatuation, the devotion, the superstition of others that keeps them going. These others in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred are women.” ~ Washington Square by Henry James

Instead of trying to still his fears, he encouraged them, with that superstitious impression which clings to us all, that if we expect evil very strongly it is the less likely to come. ~ Silas Marner by George Eliot

 

5 Quotes About Autumn From Literature

LitQuotes Blog Posted on by

Today is the first day of autumn. To mark the day, here’s a fun collection of five autumnal quotes from literature.

“Draw your chair up and hand me my violin, for the only problem we have still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings.” ~ The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

On the motionless branches of some trees, autumn berries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jewels. ~ Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. ~ The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after the performance–all strewn with crumpled playbills. ~ The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was a ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it where it had been left last night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quiet coppice-wood, in which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, and the sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful. ~ A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Autumn Quotes

Autumn Quotes from Literature

Five Quotes from Literature about Experience

LitQuotes Blog Posted on by

Yesterday we added experience quotes as a topic.  Here are five of my favorites from the collection.

Experience Quotes

“Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.” ~ Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde

“Thanks to his constant habit of shaking the bottle in which life handed him the wine of experience, he presently found the taste of the lees rising as usual into his draught.” ~ The Ambassadors by Henry James

How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? Or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections? ~ Adam Bede by George Eliot

A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience. ~ The Professor at the Breakfast Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

“No, I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing.” ~ Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime by Oscar Wilde

See Entire Experience Quote Collection

 

 

Lost – Season Two

LitQuotes Blog Posted on by

Lost Season Tw0Lost – Season Two, just like all the other seasons,  is filled with so many literary allusions that it’s hard to keep track.   In this season:

  • Ben makes his first appearance claiming to be Henry Gale.  The name is from Dorothy’s uncle in the Wizard of Oz series by L. Frank Baum.   Interestingly enough the last name of Gale is not used in the most famous book in the series, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
  • In a major plot point, an orientation video (located on a shelf behind The Turn of the Screw by Henry James) reveals much about the hatch and the Dharma Initiative.
  • Desmond shows fine taste in literature by saying that Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens, my favorite Dickens novel, will be the last book that he ever reads.