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Alice James Biography

Alice James (August 7, 1848 – March 6, 1892) was an American diarist, sister of novelist Henry James and philosopher and psychologist William James. Her relationship with William was unusually close, and she seems to have been badly affected by his marriage. James suffered lifelong health problems, that were generally dismissed as hysteria, in the style of the day. She is best known for her published diaries.

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Alice James Quotes

It is an immense loss to have all robust and sustaining expletives refined away from one! At. moments of trial refinement is a feeble reed to lean upon.

Feeble, Lean, Loss, Refined, Trials, Vulgarity Is

The difficulty about all this dying, is that you can't tell a fellow anything about it, so where does the fun come in?

Death, Dying, Fellow, Fun, Funny

I think that if I get into the habit of writing a bit about what happens, or rather doesn't happen, I may lose a little of the sense of isolation and desolation which abides with me. My circumstances allowing of nothing but the ejaculation of one-syllabled reflections, a written monologue by that most interesting being, myself, may have its yet to be discovered consolations.

Allowing, Discovered, Reflection, Reflections, Thinking, Writing

Who would ever give up the reality of dreams for relative knowledge?

Dream, Dreams, Giving Up, Knowledge, Reality

I wonder, whether, if I had had any education I should have been more, or less, of a fool than I am. It would have deprived me surely of those exquisite moments of mental flatulence which every now and then inflate the cerebral vacuum with a delicious sense of latent possibilities-of stretching oneself to cosmic limits, and who would ever give up the reality of dreams for relative knowledge?

Dream, Giving Up, Limits, Reality, Stretching, Vacuum

If I can get on to my sofa and occupy myself for four hours, at intervals through the day, scribbling my notes, and able to read the books that belong to me, in that they clarify the density, and shape the formless mass within, life seems inconceivably rich.

Book, Density, Hours, Intervals, Read, Shapes

Though I have no productive worth, I have a certain value as an indestructible quantity.

Certain, Indestructible, Quantity, Value, Worth

Ah! Those strange people who have the courage to be unhappy! Are they unhappy, by the way?

Courage, People, Unhappy, Way

Notwithstanding the poverty of my outside experience, I have always had a significance for myself, and every chance to stumle along my straight and narrow little path, and to worship at the feet of my Deity, and what more can a human soul ask for?

Ask, Feet, Littles, Notwithstanding, Soul

I make it a rule always to believe compliments implicitly for five minutes, and to simmer gently for twenty more.

Believe, Compliment, Five, Minutes, Simmer, Twenties

You must remember that a woman, by nature, needs much less to feed upon than a man, a few emotions and she is satisfied.

Emotion, Emotions, Man, Men, Nature, Needs

I wonder whether if I had an education I should have been more or less a fool that I am.

Education, Fool, Humorous, Stupid, Wonder

What sense of superiority it gives one to escape reading some book which every one else is reading.

Book, Escape, Gives, Giving, Reading

The success or failure of a life, as far as posterity goes, seems to lie in the more or less luck of seizing the right moment of escape

Failure, Lie, Life, Luck, Lying

It is so comic to hear oneself called old, even at ninety I suppose!

Age, Comic, Ninety, Old, Suppose

One has a greater sense of degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience.

Doctor, Doctors, Greater, Memorable, Sense, Women

Physical pain however great ends in itself and falls away like dry husks from the mind, whilst moral discords and nervous horrors sear the soul.

Fall, Falls, Pain, Soul