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James Joyce Quotes

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Famous James Joyce Quotes

“A Classical style... is the syllogism of art, the only legitimate process from one world to another. Classicism is not the manner of any fixed age or of any fixed country; it is a constant state of the artistic mind. It is a temper of security and satisfaction and patience.”

WorldMindArtCountryStatesAgeProcessSecurityStyleConstantSatisfactionArtisticFixedTemperClassicism
Book:Delphi Complete Works of James Joyce (Illustrated)
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“The philosophic mind inclines always to an elaborate life--the life of Goethe or of Leonardo da Vinci; but the life of the poet isintense--the life of Blake or of Dante--taking into its centre the life that surrounds it and flinging it abroad again amid planetary music.”

MindPoetryPoetPhilosophicalSurroundCentreBlakeInclinePhilosophicLeonardo
Book:The Complete Works of James Joyce: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Poetry, Essays & Letters: Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegan’s Wake, Dubliners, The Cat and the Devil, Exiles, Chamber Music, Pomes Penyeach, Stephen Hero, Giacomo Joyce, Critical Writings & more
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“The romantic temper, so often and so grievously misinterpreted and not more by others than by its own, is an insecure, unsatisfied, and impatient temper which sees no fit abode here for its ideals and chooses therefore to behold them under insensible figures. As a result of this choice it comes to disregard certain limitations. Its figures are blown to wild adventures, lacking the gravity of solid bodies, and the mind that has conceived them ends by disowning them.”

MindEndsBodyCertainChoicesResultsFiguresAdventureFitIdealsLimitationTemperGravityLackingInsecureAestheticsImpatientRomanticismDisregardAbodeUnsatisfiedInsensibleMisinterpretedDisowning
Author:James Joyce
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“My words in her mind: cold polished stones sinking through a quagmire.”

MindColdStonesSinkingPolishedCold HeartQuagmire
Book:The Complete Works of James Joyce: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Poetry, Essays & Letters: Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegan’s Wake, Dubliners, The Cat and the Devil, Exiles, Chamber Music, Pomes Penyeach, Stephen Hero, Giacomo Joyce, Critical Writings & more
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“Then Nuvoletta reflected for the last time in her little long life and she made up all her myriads of drifting minds in one. She cancelled all her engauzements. She climbed over the bannistars; she gave a childy cloudy cry: Nuee! Nuee! A lightdress fluttered. She was gone. And into the river that had been a stream . . . there fell a tear, a singult tear, the loveliest of all tears . . . for it was a leaptear. But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh! I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!”

MindHeartLittlesLongMadeLastsGoneCryTearsRiversSillyStreamsLast TimeLong LifeBrooksDriftingCloudy
Author:James Joyce
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“He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances. He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a verb in the past tense.”

LifeMindLittlesPersonsBodyPastSidesSubjectsHabitReflectionThirdsDistanceSentencesOddGlancesTenseSelf ReflectionVerbsDoubtfulContainingThird Person
Book:The Complete Works of James Joyce: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Poetry, Essays & Letters: Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegan’s Wake, Dubliners, The Cat and the Devil, Exiles, Chamber Music, Pomes Penyeach, Stephen Hero, Giacomo Joyce, Critical Writings & more
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“Do you know what a pearl is and what an opal is? My soul when you came sauntering to me first through those sweet summer evenings was beautiful but with the pale passionless beauty of a pearl. Your love has passed through me and now I feel my mind something like an opal, that is, full of strange uncertain hues and colours, of warm lights and quick shadows and of broken music.”

KnowsFeelsMindFirstsSoulLightBeautifulStrangeSweetBrokenSummerShadowWarmMy SoulEveningColourDo You KnowPaleUncertainPearlsSaunteringHueOpalSummer Evening
Book:The Complete Works of James Joyce: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Poetry, Essays & Letters: Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegan’s Wake, Dubliners, The Cat and the Devil, Exiles, Chamber Music, Pomes Penyeach, Stephen Hero, Giacomo Joyce, Critical Writings & more
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“By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or memorable phrase of the mind itself. He believed it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care (saving them for later use, that is), seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments.”

MenMindMomentsUseCareSpiritualRecordsSeeingHe ManSpeechLettersExtremesCraftsSavingManifestationPhrasesMemorableDelicateGesturesEpiphanyVulgarity
Author:James Joyce
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