Quote #49
The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.
More from Henry James
- The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.
- The advantage, the luxury, as well as the torment and responsibility of the novelist, is that there is no limit to what he may attempt as a…
- Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
- Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web, of the finest silken thread…
- So here it is at last, the distinguished thing!
- The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implication of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of …
- Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
- What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?