James Joyce Quotes

248 Sourced Quotes

I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.

James Joyce
Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job.

James Joyce
He passes, struck by the stare of truculent Wellington but in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy.

James Joyce
A certain pride, a certain awe, withheld him from offering to God even one prayer at night, though he knew it was in God's power to take away his life while he slept and hurl his soul hellward ere he could beg for mercy.

James Joyce
The mocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious.

James Joyce
But all they are all there scraping along to sneeze out a likelihood that will solve and salve life's robulous rebus.

James Joyce
It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don't spin it out too long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent, aflame, crowned, high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the ethereal bosom, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere all soaring all around about the all, the endlessnessnessness...

James Joyce
I think people might be willing to pay for the special odor of corruption which, I hope, floats over my stories.

James Joyce
Quoint a quincidence! O. K. Omnius Kollidimus. As Ollover Krumwall sayed when he slepped ueber his grannyamother. Kangaroose feathers. Who in the name of thunder'd ever belevin you were that bolt?

James Joyce
Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the incorruptible eons of the gods.

James Joyce
The cluekey to a worldroom beyond the roomwhorld, for scarce one, or pathetically few of his dode canal sammenlivers cared seriously or for long to doubt with Kurt Iuld van Dijke (the gravitational pull perceived by certain fixed residents and the capture of uncertain comets chancedrifting through our system suggesting the authenticitatem of his aliquitudinis) he canonicity of his existence as a tesseract. Be still, O quick! Speak him dumb! Hush ye fronds of Ulma!

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

James Joyce
Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not.

James Joyce
Like the tender fires of stars moments of their life together, that no one knew of or would ever know of, broke upon and illuminated his memory.

James Joyce
One great part of every human existence is passed in a state which cannot be rendered sensible by the use of wideawake language, cutanddry grammar and goahead plot.

James Joyce
For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.

James Joyce
He comes into the world God knows how, walks on the water, gets out of his grave and goes up off the Hill of Howth. What drivel is this?

James Joyce
O thanks be to the great God I got somebody to give me what I badly wanted to put some heart up into me youve no chances at all inthis place like you used long ago I wish somebody would write me a loveletter....

James Joyce
By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or memorable phrase of the mind itself. He believed it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care (saving them for later use, that is), seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments.

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

James Joyce