Henry James Quotes

The Americans are very clear, and obsessed with nouns.

I am still studying verbs and the mystery of how they connect nouns. I am more suspicious of adjectives than at any other time in all my born days.

What is an adjective? Nouns name the world. Verbs activate the names. Adjectives come from somewhere else. The word adjective (epitheton in Greek) is itself an adjective meaning 'placed on top', 'added', 'appended', 'foreign'. Adjectives seem fairly innocent additions, but look again. These small imported mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity. They are the latches of being.

Whatever you want to say, there is only one word to express it, only one verb to give it movement, only one adjective to qualify it.

Words," he said, "is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life.

Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never rest content with approximations, never resort to trickery, however happy, or to vulgarism, in order to dodge the difficulty.

Grammar is the analysis of language.

The All of Things is an infinite conjugation of the verb To do .

The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be any of this.

It's the periods and the commas that you have to forget about. The words never change, but the intonations change.

Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows Where noun, and verb, and participle grows.

Human, Allen, is an adjective, and its use as a noun is in itself regrettable.

A tired exclamation mark is a question mark.

Grammar is the greatest joy in life, don't you find?

Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do.

Language. By this we build pyramids, fight battles, ordain and administer laws, shape and teach religion, and knit man to man, cultivate each other, and ourselves.

For language to have meaning, there must be intervals of silence somewhere, to divide word from word and utterance from utterance. He who retires into silence does not necessarily hate language. Perhaps it is love and respect for language which imposes silence upon him. For the mercy of God is not heard in words unless it is heard, both before and after the words are spoken, in silence.

For me, language is something that I've always loved. When I read, that's what I look for. When I write, that's what I strive for.

In the end, it is my belief, words are the only things that can construct a world that makes sense.

Words, words. They're all we have to go on.

Grammar is the grave of letters.

The tongue of man is a twisty thing, there are plenty of words there of every kind.

Good is a noun rather than an adjective.

The words that are coming out of my mouth and how I mean them, it's so much different.