
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Wisehouse Classics Edition)

He chronicled with patience what he saw, detaching himself from it and tasting its mortifying flavour in secret.
James Joyce • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Wisehouse Classics Edition)
The poor sinner holds out his arms to those who were dear to him in this earthly world, to those whose simple piety perhaps he made a mock of, to those who counselled him and tried to lead him on the right path, to a kind brother, to a loving sister, to the mother and father who loved him so dearly. But it is too late: the just turn away from the w
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This is just a strikingly weird image - God separates sinner from saved, and the saved are somehow OK entering heaven without their loved ones? They don't plead for mercy for their children or parents? "Oh well, mom be damned..."
— Do you know what Ireland is? asked Stephen with cold violence. Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.
James Joyce • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Wisehouse Classics Edition)
She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness. Long, long she suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither and
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art necessarily divides itself into three forms progressing from one to the next. These forms are: the lyrical form, the form wherein the artist presents his image in immediate relation to himself; the epical form, the form wherein he presents his image in mediate relation to himself and to others; the dramatic form, the form wherein he presents hi
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His soul was fattening and congealing into a gross grease, plunging ever deeper in its dull fear into a sombre threatening dusk while the body that was his stood, listless and dishonoured, gazing out of darkened eyes, helpless, perturbed, and human for a bovine god to stare upon.
James Joyce • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Wisehouse Classics Edition)
The dull light fell more faintly upon the page whereon another equation began to unfold itself slowly and to spread abroad its widening tail. It was his own soul going forth to experience, unfolding itself sin by sin, spreading abroad the bale-fire of its burning stars and folding back upon itself, fading slowly, quenching its own lights and fires.
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I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile, and cunning.
James Joyce • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Wisehouse Classics Edition)
This, ultimately, is the transformation from boy to man, what it's all been coming to.
It seemed as if he used the shifts and lore and cunning of the world, as bidden to do, for the greater glory of God, without joy in their handling or hatred of that in them which was evil but turning them, with a firm gesture of obedience back upon themselves and for all this silent service it seemed as if he loved not at all the master and little,
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I have seen many with this sense of duty.