Explore Quotes by James Joyce

By his monstrous way of life he seemed to have put himself beyond the limits of reality. Nothing moved him or spoke to him from the real world unless he heard it in an echo of the infuriated cries within him.

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

A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.

The object of the artist is the creation of the beautiful. What the beautiful is is another question.

If he had smiled why would he have smiled? To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.

Gentle lady, do not sing Sad songs about the end of love; Lay aside sadness and sing How love that passes is enough. Sing about the long deep sleep Of lovers that are dead, and how In the grave all love shall sleep: Love is aweary now.

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.

I done me best when I was let. Thinking always if I go all goes. A hundred cares, a tithe of troubles and is there one who understands me? One in a thousand of years of the nights? All me life I have been lived among them but now they are becoming lothed to me. And I am lothing their little warm tricks. And lothing their mean cosy turns. And all the greedy gushes out through their small souls. And all the lazy leaks down over their brash bodies. How small it's all! And me letting on to meself always. And lilting on all the time.

Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying: — That is God. Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee! — What? Mr Deasy asked. — A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.

You can still die when the sun is shining.

Interpretations of interpretations interpreted.

I care not if I live but a day and a night, so long as my deeds live after me.

Thought is the thought of thought.

No one would think he'd make such a beautiful corpse.

I desire to press in my arms the loveliness which has not yet come into the world.

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

The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you.

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

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

You forget that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence: and the kingdom of heaven is like a woman.