The Portrait of a Lady

Henry James was an author I'd never read before, and I enjoyed him thoroughly. Some favorite bits:

[Describing an invalid]: "Living as he now lived was like reading a good book in a poor translation--a meager entertainment for a young man who felt he might have been an excellent linguist." - 94
(I just can't get over this simile. It haunts me.)

"Mrs Touchett, not having cultivated relations with her husband's neighbors, was not warranted in expecting visits from them. She had, however, a peculiar taste; she liked to receive cards. For what is usually called social intercourse she had very little relish; but nothing pleased her more than to find her hall-table whitened with symbolic morsels of white pasteboard." - 112

[One character's opinion]: "The opera's very bad; the women look like laundresses and sing like peacocks." - 349