It seems impossible for a man to learn the value of money without first having to learn to waste it.

'I never feel the need to discuss my work with anyone. No, I am too busy writing it. It has got to please me and if it does I don't need to talk about it. If it doesn't please me, talking about it won't improve it, since the only thing to improve it is to work on it some more. I am not a literary man but only a writer. I don't get any pleasure from talking shop.

All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the base of our splendid failure to do the impossible.

It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless.

Menfolks listens to somebody because of what he says. Women don't. They don't care what he said. They listens because of what he is.

I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue.

You should approach Joyce's Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.