James Joyce Quotes

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Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call.

James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916)

His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

James Joyce (Dubliners, 1914)

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

James Joyce (Ulysses - Chapter 13, 1922)

When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.

James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916)

Love (understood as the desire of good for another) is in fact so unnatural a phenomenon that it can scarcely repeat itself, the soul being unable to become virgin again and not having energy enough to cast itself out again into the ocean of another's soul.

James Joyce

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.

James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916)

I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use — silence, exile and cunning.

James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916)

I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

James Joyce (Ulysses - Chapter 18 - Last Lines, 1922)

Beauty, the splendour of truth, is a gracious presence when the imagination contemplates intensely the truth of its own being or the visible world, and the spirit which proceeds out of truth and beauty is the holy spirit of joy. These are realities and these alone give and sustain life.

James Joyce (Lecture in Dublin, 1902)

Does nobody understand?

James Joyce (Attributed Last Words, 1941)

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James Joyce Biography

Born: February 2, 1882
Died: January 13, 1941

James Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet. He was a incredibly influential writer during and after his time. He is best known for being the author of the highly successful book Ulysses.

Notable Works

Dubliners (1914)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1914 - 1915)
Ulysses (1922)
Pomes Penyeach (1927)
Finnegans Wake (1939)
Exiles and Poetry
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