How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The child was provided for, thanks to a crafty godmother, a defunct aunt of Beale's, who had left her something in such a manner that the parents could appropriate only the income. (Preface.6)
Here, in the preface, we see how important it is to James (and really, all sane people) that children be provided for financially. However, James is making the point (again, it's a totally sane one) that monetary security hardly guarantees emotionally supportive security. The aunt is crafty … but the evil parents still get their grubby little paws on part of Maisie's inheritance.
Quote #2
The child was provided for, but the new arrangement was inevitably confounding to a young intelligence. (I.1)
Here's how James sets up the main conflict in his plot. Over and over again, Maisie has to confront things that confuse her young mind. But by the same token, difficult as they are to face, these things make Maisie even smarter. That's not quite a silver lining, but it's something since it means she's equipped to keep overcoming obstacles.
Quote #3
She puzzled out with imperfect signs, but with a prodigious spirit, that she had been a centre of hatred and a messenger of insult, and that everything was bad because she had been employed to make it so. (II.2)
Here, we see one of the saddest elements of Maisie's situation—she believes that she is the cause of everything that is bad in her life instead of seeing that her parents are total dirtbags. She's young enough to still think her parents are the best people on earth.
Quote #4
She had conceived her first passion, and the object of it was her governess. (III.6)
Children have passion, too—only theirs is nonsexual. Maisie is passionate about her pretty governess, Miss Overmore. Her passion sets up the passion that her father and Sir Claude will later have for the same Miss Overmore. Of course, theirs is a pretty carnal passion.
Quote #5
Neither this, however, nor the old brown frock nor the diadem nor the button, made a difference for Maisie in the charm put forth through everything, the charm of Mrs. Wix's conveying that somehow, in her ugliness and her poverty, she was peculiarly and soothingly safe; safer than any one in the world, than papa, than mamma, than the lady with the arched eyebrows; safer even, though so much less beautiful, than Miss Overmore, on whose loveliness, as she supposed it, the little girl was faintly conscious that one couldn't rest with quite the same tucked-in and kissed-for-good-night feeling. (IV.3)
Children, in James's book (and his novel—hey-oh!), are more likely to see past outward shlubby looks and focus on inner beauty. Especially when that inner beauty has to do with being "soothingly safe."
Quote #6
Everything had something behind it: life was like a long, long corridor with rows of closed doors. She had learned that at these doors it was wise not to knock—this seemed to produce from within such sounds of derision. Little by little, however, she understood more, for it befell that she was enlightened by Lisette's questions, which reproduced the effect of her own upon those for whom she sat in the very darkness of Lisette. (V.4)
This is one of the most heartbreaking scenes in James's whole novel. In it, Maisie treats her doll, Lisette, the way the adults in her world treat her. It's striking that we hardly ever see Maisie playing games—she has an awful lot of serious business to attend to, after all, including the business of survival. She's mostly shown engaged in serious conversations with different adults. This fact makes the scene when she plays with Lisette that much more striking. That we hardly ever see Maisie do anything truly childish means that when we do see just that, it's a painful reminder of the fact that Maisie is just a little girl.
Quote #7
The only mystification in this was the imposing time of life that her elders spoke of as youth. (X.16)
Here, Maisie realizes that she doesn't understand what "youth" means since she hears adults use it to speak of one another as well as of young people like Maisie herself. This is a touching example of the way James communicates what Maisie knew by highlighting the limits of what her young mind can know.
Quote #8
Her reflexions indeed at this moment thickened apace, and one of them made her sure that her governess had conversations, private, earnest and not infrequent, with her denounced stepfather. She perceived in the light of a second episode that something beyond her knowledge had taken place in the house. (XI.4)
Maisie's youth keeps her from understanding everything that is going on around her, but it doesn't stop her from knowing that something is going on. This is James's way of showing us that children lack knowledge, but they don't lack intelligence. Maisie is whip-smart.
Quote #9
It was while this absence lasted that our young lady finally discovered what had happened in the house to be that her mother was no longer in love. (XI.4)
"Our young lady" is neither too young nor too ladylike to understand that her mom is no longer in love. James doesn't think that innocence (which Maisie certainly has) means that it's impossible to be observant and recognize the presence or absence of emotion.
Quote #10
"Isn't he sympathetic?" asked Mrs. Wix, who had clearly, on the strength of his charming portrait, made up her mind that Sir Claude promised her a future. "You can see, I hope," she added with much expression, "that he's a perfect gentleman!" Maisie had never before heard the word "sympathetic" applied to anybody's face; she heard it with pleasure and from that moment it agreeably remained with her. (XI.20)
Here, James makes two statements: 1) That young people absorb knowledge quickly. 2) That young people take great pleasure from learning new things.
Quote #11
Full of charm at any rate was the prospect of some day getting Sir Claude in; especially after Mrs. Wix, as the fruit of more midnight colloquies, once went so far as to observe that she really believed it was all that was wanted to save him. This critic, with these words, struck her disciple as cropping up, after the manner of mamma when mamma talked, quite in a new place. The child stared as at the jump of a kangaroo. "Save him from what?"
Mrs. Wix debated, then covered a still greater distance. "Why just from awful misery." (XI.20-22)
A lot of what James suggests about youth suggests that youth does not equal obliviousness. The young are super-aware of their surroundings and especially pick up on people acting in similar fashions. Maisie is spooked that Mrs. Wix is talking like her mamma—this is probably extra spooky because of how awful her mom is.
Quote #12
This was the second source—I have just alluded to the first—of the child's consciousness of something that, very hopefully, she described to herself as a new phase; and it also presented in the brightest light the fresh enthusiasm with which Mrs. Beale always reappeared and which really gave Maisie a happier sense than she had yet had of being very dear at least to two persons. That she had small remembrance at present of a third illustrates, I am afraid, a temporary oblivion of Mrs. Wix, an accident to be explained only by a state of unnatural excitement. (XVII.4)
Young people not only are aware of beginnings and endings— here, Maisie knows that she is entering a new phase—but they also can chart their own happiness. James thinks that kiddos have almost as well-developed an understanding of themselves in relation to their past as old fogies do.
Quote #13
"And for your keeping in with them?" Beale roared again; it was as if his spirits rose and rose. "Do you realise, pray, that in saying that you're a monster?"
She turned it over. "A monster?"
"They've made one of you. Upon my honour it's quite awful. It shows the kind of people they are. Don't you understand," Beale pursued, "that when they've made you as horrid as they can—as horrid as themselves—they'll just simply chuck you?" (XIX.35)
This exchange is brutal. Beale is being a real jerk to his daughter. He's also showing how much he believes that children can be molded into monsters. Maisie's daddy clearly believes that action can make kiddos into creeps, but inaction (his mode of parenting) has no ill effects.
Quote #14
Still they didn't separate; they stood smoking together under the stars. Then at last Sir Claude produced it. "I'm free—I'm free."
She looked up at him; it was the very spot on which a couple of hours before she had looked up at her mother. "You're free—you're free."(XXI.35)
One of the attributes of little kids is that they have a tendency to repeat what they hear adults say … which can lead to some embarrassing/hilarious moments. Maisie may not understand the nuances of what she's repeating, but she'll repeat it anyhow.
Quote #15
"Well," said Mrs. Wix, "nobody, you know, is free to commit a crime."
"A crime!" The word had come out in a way that made the child sound it again. (XXV.12)
This quote shows not only that little kids love to repeat phrases they hear from adults, but why they love it so much. Even though kids have limited vocabularies, they get a thrill out of the way words are uttered. They might not understand vocab, but they understand intonation.