Authors — Quotes

James Joyce Quotes: 14

Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.
Shut your eyes and see.
His heart danced upon her movements like a cork upon a tide. He heard what her eyes said to him from beneath their cowl and knew that in some dim past, whether in life or revery, he had heard their tale before.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
Ulysses
You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead.
Why is it that words like these seem dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?
The Dead
and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.
Dubliners
Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.
All things are inconstant except the faith in the soul, which changes all things and fills their inconstancy with light.
The soul ... has a slow and dark birth, more mysterious than the birth of the body. When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Interpretations of interpretations interpreted.
The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails
By thinking of things you could understand them.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man