Quotes by Alice James

About Alice James:

Alice James is known mainly for the posthumously published diary that she kept in her final years.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

In looking back now, I see how it began in my childhood, altho’ I was not conscious of the necessity until ’67 or ’68 when I broke down first, acutely, and had violent turns of hysteria. As I lay prostrate after the storm with my mind luminous ...

Alice James

The fact is, I have been dead so long and it has been simply such a grim shoving of the hours behind me…since the hideous summer of ’78, when I went down to the deep sea, its dark waters closed over me and I knew neither hope nor peace.

Alice James

I suppose one has a greater sense of intellectual degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience.

Alice James

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

Alice James

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.

Alice James

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

Alice James

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.

Alice James

How sick one gets of being 'good', how much I should respect myself if I could burst out and make everyone wretched for twenty-four hours; embody selfishness.

Alice James

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

Alice James

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

Alice James

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

Alice James

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

Alice James

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

Alice James

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 inconceivab...

Alice James

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

Alice James

Author Bio

  • NameAlice James
  • DescriptionAmerican diarist
  • BornAugust 7, 1848
  • DiedMarch 6, 1892
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWoman Of Letters