Our civilization, bequeathed to us by fierce adventurers, eaters of meat and hunters, is so full of hurry and combat, so busy about many things which perhaps are of no importance, that it cannot but see something feeble in a civilization which smiles as it refuses to make the battlefield the test of excellence.More James Joyce [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

Saying that a great genius is mad, while at the same time recognizing his artistic worth, is like saying that he had rheumatism or suffered from diabetes. Madness, in fact, is a medical term that can claim no more notice from the objective critic than he grants the charge of heresy raised by the theologian, or the charge of immorality raised by the police.More James Joyce [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

What did that mean, to kiss? You put your face up like that to say goodnight and then his mother put her face down. That was to kiss. His mother put her lips on his cheek; her lips were soft and they wetted his cheek; and they made a tiny little noise: kiss. Why did people do that with their two faces?More James Joyce [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

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?More James Joyce [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by posterity because he was the last to discover America.More James Joyce [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

A nation is the same people living in the same place.More James Joyce [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

I shall write a book some day about the appropriateness of names. Geoffrey Chaucer has a ribald ring, as is proper and correct, and Alexander Pope was inevitably Alexander Pope. Colley Cibber was a silly little man without much elegance and Shelley was very Percy and very Bysshe.More James Joyce [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

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 defense the only arms I allow myself to use --silence, exile and cunning.More James Joyce [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

When the Irishman is found outside of Ireland in another environment, he very often becomes a respected man. The economic and intellectual conditions that prevail in his own country do not permit the development of individuality. No one who has any self-respect stays in Ireland, but flees afar as though from a country that has undergone the visitation of an angered Jove.More James Joyce [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:03]

He found in the world without as actual what was in his world within as possible.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:15]

I fear those big words which make us so unhappy.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:26]

I think a child should be allowed to take his father's or mother's name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:34]

I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:39]

If Ireland is to become a new Ireland she must first become European.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:44]

Ireland sober is Ireland stiff.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:54]

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.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:06]

My mouth is full of decayed teeth and my soul of decayed ambitions.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:45]

My words in her mind: cold polished stones sinking through a quagmire.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:59]

Nations have their ego, just like individuals.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:04]

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.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:41]

The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:52]

Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:08]

Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:16]

Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not.More James Joyce [08/10/2011 03:08:21]