James Joyce

Life is too short to read a bad book.

Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by posterity because he was the last to discover America.

It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked looking-glass of a servant.

She would follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he was her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was the master guide. Come what might she would be wild, untrammelled, free.

There was no doubt about it: if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin.

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

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

All things are inconstant except the faith in the soul, which changes all things and fills their inconstancy with light.

Ireland sober is Ireland stiff.

Ineluctable modality of the visible; at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read.

Beware the horns of a bull, the heels of the horse, and the smile of an Englishman.

I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppled masonry, and time one livid final flame.

People trample over flowers, yet only to embrace a cactus.

I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.

A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

When I die Dublin will be written on my heart.

O cold ! O shivery ! It was your ambrosial beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet. Let me off this once.

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 light music of whiskey falling into glasses made an agreeable interlude.

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