Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

James Joyce Novelist

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United Kingdom
  • Born: Feb 2, 1882
  • Died: Jan 13, 1941

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century.

Joyce is best known for Ulysses, a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominent among these the stream of consciousness technique he utilized. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners, and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Finnegans Wake. His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, occasional journalism, and his published letters.

Joyce was born in 41 Brighton Square, Rathgar, Dublin—a kilometre from his mother's birthplace in Terenure—into a middle-class family on the way down. A brilliant student, he excelled at the Jesuit schools Clongowes and Belvedere, despite the chaotic family life imposed by his father's love of drink and precarious finances. He went on to attend University College Dublin.

In 1904, in his early twenties he emigrated permanently to continental Europe with his partner Nora Barnacle. They lived in Trieste, Paris, and Zurich.

Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art it is the part the schools cannot recognize. art

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. age & legal

Men are governed by lines of intellect - women: by curves of emotion. men & women

Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home. home

Satan, really, is the romantic youth of Jesus re-appearing for a moment. romantic

I fear those big words which make us so unhappy. fear

Ireland sober is Ireland stiff. St. Patrick's Day

I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day. future

Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality. poetry

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts. best

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