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.

If only the sense of actuality can be lulled-and it sleeps for ever in most historians-there is no passion that cannot be gratified in the past.

One is certain of nothing but the truth of one's own emotions.

People in a novel can be understood completely by the reader, if the novelist can be understood completely by the reader, if the novelist wishes; their inner as well as their outer life can be exposed.

One has two duties - to be worried and not to be worried.

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man.

It's not what people do to you, but what they mean, that hurts.