James Joyce Quotes

And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes.

Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.

He found in the world without as actual what was in his world within as possible.

I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.

I fear those big words which make us so unhappy.

I think a child should be allowed to take his father's or mother's name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.

I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.

If Ireland is to become a new Ireland she must first become European.

Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.

Ireland sober is Ireland stiff.

Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse.

Men are governed by lines of intellect - women: by curves of emotion.

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

My mouth is full of decayed teeth and my soul of decayed ambitions.

My words in her mind: cold polished stones sinking through a quagmire.

Nations have their ego, just like individuals.

No pen, no ink, no table, no room, no time, no quiet, no inclination.

Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality.

Satan, really, is the romantic youth of Jesus re-appearing for a moment.

Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance.

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.

The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.

There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.

Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.