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I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.

James Joyce

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James Joyce
Age: 58 †
Born: 1882
Born: February 2
Died: 1941
Died: January 13
Author
Father
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
Prosaist
Teacher
Writer
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce
Body
Confused
Wires
Ever
Fingers
Harp
Would
Whether
Harps
Like
Upon
Adoration
Words
Wire
Speak
Spokes
Running
Gestures
Tell
Spoke

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Our civilization, bequeathed to us by fierce adventurers, eaters of meat and hunters, is so full of hurry and combat, so busy about many things which perhaps are of no importance, that it cannot but see something feeble in a civilization which smiles as it refuses to make the battlefield the test of excellence.
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Men are governed by lines of intellect - women: by curves of emotion.
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There is not past, no future everything flows in an eternal present.
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...rapid motion through space elates one.
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Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead.
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I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppled masonry, and time one livid final flame.
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Sentimentality is unearned emotion.
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When I heard the word ''stream'' uttered with such a revolting primness, what I think of is urine and not the contemporary novel. And besides, it isn't new, it is far from the dernier cri. Shakespeare used it continually, much too much in my opinion, and there's Tristam Shandy, not to mention the Agamemnon.
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His heart danced upon her movement like a cork upon a tide.
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Under cover of her silence he pressed her arm closely to his side and, as they stood at the hotel door, he felt that they had escaped from their lives and duties, escaped from home and friends and run away together with wild and radiant hearts to a new adventure.
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To discover the mode of life or of art whereby my spirit could express itself in unfettered freedom.
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And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes.
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One great part of every human existence is passed in a state which cannot be rendered sensible by the use of wideawake language, cutanddry grammar and goahead plot.
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So you need hardly spell me how every word will be bound over to carry three score and ten toptypsical readings throughout the book of Doublends Jined.
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Wipe your glosses with what you know.
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Satan, really, is the romantic youth of Jesus re-appearing for a moment.
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A certain pride, a certain awe, withheld him from offering to God even one prayer at night, though he knew it was in God's power to take away his life while he slept and hurl his soul hellward ere he could beg for mercy.
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For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.
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