129 quotes
If Shakespeare required a word and had not met it in civilised discourse, he unhesitatingly made it up.
A Mouthful of Air: Language and Languages, Especially English (1992)
Few men can do more than touch the fringes of a woman's satisfaction.
The Kingdom of the Wicked (1985)
She sat shortly after, rosy-footed, in a pair of my black Charvet pajamas, sipping warm milk.
Earthly Powers (1980)
Celibacy is not merely unknown to Islam, it is unintelligible.
The Enemy in the Blanket (1958)
To impose good , whether through force or through some technique like aversion therapy, is evil. To act evilly is better than to have good imposed.
"Easier, lad, with those soft small bodies....Nothing to it. They're just soft squashy things."
Man of Nazareth (1979)
To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.
Homage to QWERT YUIOP: Selected Journalism 1978-1985 (1986)
All art preserves mysteries which aesthetic philosophers tackle in vain.
A Mouthful of Air: Language and Languages, Especially English (1992)
Men are influenced by big loud empty words, styes which swell the eyelids and impede vision of the truth.
Here Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader (1965)
Every grain of experience is food for the greedy growing soul of the artist.
Here Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader (1965)
‘I know what is love. Love is man and woman in bed.’
Beds in the East (1959)
Oh come, Caesar, art is for the impotent....Why dream when it's more satisfactory to be awake. The reality is potestas.
The Kingdom of the Wicked (1985)
"The scientific approach to life is not necessarily appropriate to states of visceral anguish."
Tremor of Intent (1966)
I suppose the only real reason for travelling is to learn that all people are the same.
One Hand Clapping (1961)
Love seems inevitable, necessary, as normal and as easy a process as respiration.
The Right to an Answer (1960)
If the world is to be improved it must be by the exercise of individual charity.
Here Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader (1965)
The East would always present that calm face of faint astonishment, unmoved at the anger, not understanding the bitterness.
Time for a Tiger (1956)
Writers are not, by nature, respectable: their function is to be subversive.
Homage to QWERT YUIOP: Selected Journalism 1978-1985 (1986)
Rosemary’s reputation was known; he would, by obscure logic, become retrospectively a cuckold.
Beds in the East (1959)
The church stands that it may be battered, but the fists that batter know their own impotence.
Here Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader (1965)