James Joyce: Wording

James Joyce was Irish novelist and poet. Explore interesting quotes on wording.
James Joyce: 382   quotes 33   likes

“Every night as I gazed up at the window I said to myself softly the word paralysis.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

"The Sisters"
Dubliners (1914)
Context: Every night as I gazed up at the window I said to myself softly the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work.

Night

“He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music.”

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

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Sadness , Beauty , Music , Cry

“But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

"Araby"
Dubliners (1914)

“Why is it that words like these seem dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?”

James Joyce book The Dead

Source: The Dead

“I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

Source: Dubliners

“Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone. Sad too. Touch, touch me.”

James Joyce

Source: Ulysses by James Joyce

Men , Sadness

“In woman's womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the maker all flesh that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away. This is the postcreation.”

James Joyce Ulysses

Source: Ulysses

“In one letter that he had written to her then he had said: Why is it that words like these seem to me so dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?”

James Joyce book The Dead

Source: The Dead

“I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

"Araby"
Dubliners (1914)

“When I hear the word "stream" uttered with such a revolting primness, what I think of is urine and not the contemporary novel. And besides, it isn't new, it is far from the dernier cri. Shakespeare used it continually, much too much in my opinion, and there's Tristram Shandy, not to mention the Agamemnon.”

James Joyce

Said in conversation with Frederic Prokosch and quoted in Prokosch's Voices: A Memoir (1983), "At Sylvia’s." Joyce was replying to Prokosch's statement that Molly Bloom’s monologue in Ulysses was written as a stream of consciousness. "Molly Bloom was a down-to-earth lady" said Joyce. "She would never have indulged in anything so refined as a stream of consciousness."

Thinking

“For that (the rapt one warns) is what papyr is meed of, made of, hides and hints and misses in prints. Till ye finally (though not yet endlike) meet with the acquaintance of Mister Typus, Mistress Tope and all the little typtopies. Filstup. So you need hardly spell me how every word will be bound over to carry three score and ten toptypsical readings throughout the book of Doublends Jined (may his forehead be darkened with mud who would sunder!) till Daleth, mahomahouma, who oped it closeth thereof the. Dor.”

James Joyce book Finnegans Wake

20.10-18
Finnegans Wake (1939)

Books , Reading

“Thaw! The last word in stolentelling! (424.35)”

James Joyce book Finnegans Wake

(Finnegans Wake ends with the word 'the')
Finnegans Wake (1939)