James Joyce Quotes About Language
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First, in the history of words there is much that indicates the history of men, and in comparing the speech of to-day with that ofyears ago, we have a useful illustration of the effect of external influences on the very words of a race.
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Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.
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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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And in spite of everything, Ireland remains the brain of the Kingdom. The English, judiciously practical and ponderous, furnish the over-stuffed stomach of humanity with a perfect gadget--the water closet. The Irish, condemned to express themselves in a language not their own, have stamped on it the mark of their own genius and compete for glory with the civilized nations. This is then called English literature.
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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.
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If the Irish programme did not insist on the Irish language I suppose I could call myself a nationalist. As it is, I am content torecognize myself an exile: and, prophetically, a repudiated one.
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When a man is born...there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.
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