Love and understand the Italians, for the people are more marvellous than the land.

Books have to be read it is the only way of discovering what they contain.

Our life on earth is, and ought to be, material and carnal. But we have not yet learned to manage our materialism and carnality properly; they are still entangled with the desire for ownership.

Riposte of "that old lady in the anecdote who was accused by her nieces of being illogical," Logic! Good gracious! What rubbish! How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?

Ulysses ... is a dogged attempt to cover the universe with mud, an inverted Victorianism, an attempt to make crossness and dirt succeed where sweetness and light failed, a simplification of the human character in the interests of Hell.

When you come back you will not be you. And I may not be I.

A novel is based on evidence, + or -x, the unknown quantity being the temperament of the novelist, and the unknown quantity always modifies the effect of the evidence, and sometimes transforms it entirely.