My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out.

I've been working hard on [Ulysses] all day," said Joyce. Does that mean that you have written a great deal?" I said. Two sentences," said Joyce. I looked sideways but Joyce was not smiling. I thought of [French novelist Gustave] Flaubert. "You've been seeking the mot juste?" I said. No," said Joyce. "I have the words already. What I am seeking is the perfect order of words in the sentence.

Your mind will give back to you exactly what you put into it.

Time is, time was, but time shall be no more.

I will not say nothing. I will defend my church and my religion when it is insulted and spit on.

Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work.

That ideal reader suffering from an ideal insomnia.