...thinking as he had thought before and would think again and as every other man has thought: how false the most profound book turns out to be when applied to life.

The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

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

My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky.

As long as I live under the capitalistic system I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp. This, sir, is my resignation.

We must just stay awake and see evil done for a little while it's not always.

The books I read are the ones I knew and loved when I was a young man and to which I return as you do to old friends.