Writer Quotes by James Joyce

13 Writer quotes by James Joyce

James Joyce’s musings on the act of writing are dense and rewarding, even in a modest collection of thirteen. These lines give a taste of his relentless pursuit of language, perfect for a quick yet thoughtful dive into his literary philosophy.

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Life is too short to read a bad book.

James Joyce

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Deal with him, Hemingway!

James Joyce

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The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole Life to reading my works.

James Joyce

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The studious silence of the library ... Tranquil brightness.

James Joyce

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“Write it, damn you, write it! What else are you good for?”

James Joyce

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The studious silence of the library ... Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness.

James Joyce

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“You could get a book then. There was a book in the library about Holland. There were lovely foreign names in it…

James Joyce

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If there is any difficulty in what I write, it is because of the material I use. The thought is always simple.

James Joyce

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[A writer is] a priest of eternal imagination, transmuting the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of everliving life.

James Joyce

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Human society is the embodiment of changeless laws which the whimsicalities and circumstances of men and women involve and overwrap. The realm…

James Joyce

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The important thing is not what we write but how we write, and in my opinion the modern writer must be an…

James Joyce

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“Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward…

James Joyce

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“Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward…

James Joyce

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More by James Joyce

He found in the world without as actual what was in his world within as possible.

James Joyce

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“Ah, poor dogsbody! Here lies poor dogsbody's body.”

James Joyce

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Our civilization, bequeathed to us by fierce adventurers, eaters of meat and hunters, is so full of hurry and combat, so busy about many…

James Joyce

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Shaw's works make me admire the magnificent tolerance and broadmindedness of the english.

James Joyce

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“Do you know what Ireland is?' asked Stephen with cold violence. 'Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.”

James Joyce

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The studious silence of the library ... Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness.

James Joyce

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“two cronies drank to the memory of their past. An abyss of fortune or of temperament sundered him from them. His mind seemed older…

James Joyce

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He passes, struck by the stare of truculent Wellington but in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy…

James Joyce

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“-Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position?”

James Joyce

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I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppled masonry, and time one livid final flame.

James Joyce

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Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.

James Joyce

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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…

James Joyce

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Though people may read more into Ulysses than I ever intended, who is to say that they are wrong: do any of us know…

James Joyce

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History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

James Joyce

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“It flows purling, widely flowing, floating foampool, flower unfurling.”

James Joyce

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