The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.

To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way.

The sun was already declining and each of the trees held a premonition of night.

You confuse what's important with what's impressive.

It makes a difference doesn't it, whether we fully fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?

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 there is on earth a house with many mansions, it is the house of words.