James Agee

By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth,…

— James Agee

The camera seems to me, next to unassisted and weaponless consciousness, the central instrument of our time.

— James Agee

“Yes, for every child, rich or poor, there's a time of running through a dark place; and there's no word for a…

— James Agee

“Kate, the mother of thirteen, is forty-nine; delicately made; her skin creamlike where the weather has not got at it. She is…

— James Agee

“The passion for vengeance is a terrifyingly strong one, very easily and probably inevitably wrought up by such evidence [of atrocities], even…

— James Agee

It's kind of a test, Mary, and it's the only kind that amounts to anything. When something rotten like this happens, then…

— James Agee

The mere attempt to examine my own confusion would consume volumes.

— James Agee

It is a peculiar part of the good photographer's adventure to know where luck is most likely to lie in the stream,…

— James Agee

“God is not here, Hannah said to herself; and made a small cross upon her breastbone, against her blasphemy.”

— James Agee

Well, now, some people learn a little quicker than others. It's nice to learn fast but it's nice to take your time…

— James Agee

The artist's task is not to alter the world as the eye sees it into a world of aesthetic reality, but to…

— James Agee

Understanding, and action proceeding from understanding and guided by it, is one weapon against the world's bombardment, the one medicine, the one…

— James Agee

This continent, an open palm spread frank before the sky.

— James Agee

You've got to bear it in mind that nobody that ever lived is specially privileged; the axe can fall at any moment,…

— James Agee

He used this great, sad, motionless face to suggest various related things: a one-track mind near the track's end of pure insanity;…

— James Agee

The goal is the same: life itself; and the price is the same; life itself.

— James Agee

It is clear enough by now to most people that the camera never lies is a foolish saying. Yet it is doubtful…

— James Agee

“For one who sets himself to look at all earnestly, at all in purpose toward truth, into the living eyes of a…

— james agee

“... understanding, and action proceeding from understanding and guided by it, is the one weapon against the world's bombardment, the one medicine,…

— James Agee

And a human being whose life is nurtured in an advantage which has accrued from the disadvantage of other human beings, and…

— James Agee

In every child who is born, no matter what circumstances, and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race…

— James Agee

“Now I am more nearly a grown member of the human race..she thought she had never before had a chance to realize…

— James Agee

“To own your life is hardly good Unless you own your livelihood: To own your livelihood's as bad If, in exchange, your…

— James Agee

“I hear my father; I need never fear. I hear my mother; I shall never be lonely, or want for love. When…

— James Agee

“Who are you who will read these words and study these photographs, and through what cause, by what chance, and for what…

— James Agee