James Joyce Quotes page 2

“What did it avail to pray when he knew his soul lusted after its own destruction?”

Source: About his wife, Nora. Selected Letters of James Joyce. http://www.slate.com/id/2181165

“Time is, time was, but time shall be no more.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.”

“Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo”

Letter to Augusta Gregory (22 November 1902), from James Joyce by Richard Ellmann (1959) [Oxford University Press, 1983 edition, ISBN 0-195-03381-7] (p. 107)

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“Can't bring back time. Like holding water in your hand.”

“When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once…”

Source: Ulysses

“I am proud to be an emotionalist.”

Source: Ulysses

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“Thought is the thought of thought.”

“Every bond is a bond to sorrow.”

Source: Ulysses

“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 book The Dead

Dubliners (1914)
Variant: His soul swooned softly 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.
Source: "The Dead"
Context: Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. 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.

“Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.”

James Joyce book The Dead

Dubliners (1914)
Variant: One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.
Source: "The Dead"

“She respected her husband in the same way as she respected the General Post Office, as something large, secure and fixed: and though she knew the small number of his talents she appreciated his abstract value as a male.”

“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.”

Source: Dubliners

“In the name of Annah the Allmaziful, the Everliving, the Bringer of Plurabilities, haloed be her eve, her singtime sung, her rill be run, unhemmed as it is uneven!”

Source: Ulysses

James Joyce book Finnegans Wake

Page 104
Source: Finnegans Wake (1939)

“To discover the mode of life or of art whereby my spirit could express itself in unfettered freedom.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“Though their life was modest, they believed in eating well.”

“if it is thus, I ask emphatically whence comes this thusness.”

Source: Dubliners

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse.”

“People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled them was a bite from a sheep.”

"A Painful Case"
Source: Dubliners (1914)
Context: One of his sentences, written two months after his last interview with Mrs. Sinico, read: Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse.

“What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own.”

Source: Ulysses

“I think of you so often you have no idea.”

Source: Ulysses

“He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor hear her voice touch his ear. He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.”

Source: Ulysses