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Life is too short to read a bad book.
James Joyce
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Prioritize quality in your choices, particularly in what you consume.

This quote by James Joyce emphasizes the importance of making the most of our limited time by engaging only with experiences and literature of value. It serves as a reminder to seek out enriching and fulfilling reads rather than wasting our time on books that do not resonate or enrich us.

Themes

LifeBooksReadingQualityTime

In practice

Example use cases

In a book club discussion about choosing new readings, you might say this quote to emphasize the need for quality selections.

More from James Joyce

The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
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The movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside.
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