Quotes from Finnegans Wake

James Joyce ·  628 pages

Rating: (10.5K votes)


“They lived and laughed and loved and left.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“First we feel. Then we fall.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“In the name of Annah the Allmaziful, the Everliving, the Bringer of Plurabilities, haloed be her eve, her singtime sung, her rill be run, unhemmed as it is uneven!”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“Let us leave theories there and return to here's hear.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake



“Lord, heap miseries upon us yet entwine our arts with laughters low.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“So. Avelaval. My leaves have drifted from me. All. But one clings still. I'll bear it on me. To remind me of. Lff! So soft this morning, ours. Yes. Carry me along, taddy, like you done through the toy fair! If I seen him bearing down on me now under whitespread wings like he'd come from Arkangels, I sink I'd die down over his feet, humbly dumbly, only to washup. Yes, tid. There's where. First. We pass through grass behush the bush to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the—riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“I done me best when I was let. Thinking always if I go all goes. A hundred cares, a tithe of troubles and is there one who understands me? One in a thousand of years of the nights? All me life I have been lived among them but now they are becoming lothed to me. And I am lothing their little warm tricks. And lothing their mean cosy turns. And all the greedy gushes out through their small souls. And all the lazy leaks down over their brash bodies. How small it's all! And me letting on to meself always. And lilting on all the time.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-nuk!

[A sound which represents the symbolic thunderclap associated with the fall of Adam and Eve.]”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“Then Nuvoletta reflected for the last time in her little long life and she made up all her myriads of drifting minds in one. She cancelled all her engauzements. She climbed over the bannistars; she gave a childy cloudy cry: Nuee! Nuee! A lightdress fluttered. She was gone. And into the river that had been a stream . . . there fell a tear, a singult tear, the loveliest of all tears . . . for it was a leaptear. But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh! I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake



“Sniffer of carrion, premature gravedigger, seeker of the nest of evil in the bosom of a good word, you, who sleep at our vigil and fast for our feast, you with your dislocated reason, have cutely foretold, a jophet in your own absence, by blind poring upon your many scalds and burns and blisters, impetiginous sore and pustules, by the auspices of that raven cloud, your shade, and by the auguries of rooks in parlament, death with every disaster, the dynamatisation of colleagues, the reducing of records to ashes, the levelling of all customs by blazes, the return of a lot of sweetempered gunpowdered didst unto dudst but it never stphruck your mudhead's obtundity (O hell, here comes our funeral! O pest, I'll miss the post!) that the more carrots you chop, the more turnips you slit, the more murphies you peel, the more onions you cry over, the more bullbeef you butch, the more mutton you crackerhack, the more potherbs you pound, the fiercer the fire and the longer your spoon and the harder you gruel with more grease to your elbow the merrier fumes your new Irish stew.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“Thus the unfacts, did we possess them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude...”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“The Gracehoper was always jigging ajog, hoppy on akkant of his joyicity.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“And you’ll miss me more as the narrowing weeks wing by. Someday duly, oneday truly, twosday newly, till whensday.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“Hohohoho, Mister Finn, you're going to be Mister Finnagain! Comeday morm and, O, you're vine! Sendday's eve and, ah you're vinegar! Hahahaha, Mister Funn, you're going to be fined again!”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake



“. . . for she was the only girl they loved, as she is the queenly pearl you prize, because of the way the night that first we met she is bound to be, methinks, and not in vain, the darling of my heart, sleeping in her april cot, within her singachamer, with her greengageflavoured candywhistle duetted to the crazyquilt, Isobel, she is so pretty, truth to tell, wildwood's eyes and primarose hair, quietly, all the woods so wild, in mauves of moss and daphnedews, how all so still she lay, neath of the whitethorn, child of tree, like some losthappy leaf, like blowing flower stilled, as fain would she anon, for soon again 'twill be, win me, woo me, wed me, ah weary me!”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“In the ignorance that implies the impression that knits knowledge that finds the nameform that whets the wits that convey contacts that sweeten sensation that drives desire that adheres to attachment that dogs death that bitches birth that entails the ensuance of existentiality.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“ere the hour of the twattering of bards in the twitterlitter between Druidia and the Deepsleep Sea”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“But Noodynaady's actual ingrate tootle is of come into the garner mauve and thy nice are stores of morning and buy me a bunch of iodines. ”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“over the bowls of memory where every hollow holds a hallow”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake



“We'll meet again, we'll part once more.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“And whowasit youwasit propped the pot in the yard and whatinthe nameofsen lukeareyou rubbinthe sideofthe flureofthe lobbywith Shite! will you have a plateful? Tak.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“(Stoop) if you are abcedminded, to this claybook, what curios of sings (please stoop), in this allaphbed! Can you rede (since We and Thou had it out already) its world?”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“Loud, heap miseries upon us yet entwine our arts with laughters low!”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


“Wonderlawn's lost us for ever. Alis, alas, she broke the glass! Liddell lokker through the leafery, ours is mistery of pain.”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake



“Anna was, Livia is, Plurabelle's to be. Northmen's thing made southfolk's place but howmulty plurators made eachone in per-son? Latin me that, my trinity scholard, out of eure sanscreed into
oure eryan! Hircus Civis Eblanensis! He had buckgoat paps on him, soft ones for orphans. Ho, Lord! Twins of his bosom. Lord save us! And ho! Hey? What all men. Hot? His tittering daugh-ters of. Whawk?
Can't hear with the waters of. The chittering waters of. Flitter-ing bats, fieldmice bawk talk. Ho! Are you not gone ahome?
What Thom Malone? Can't hear with bawk of bats, all thim liffey-ing waters of. Ho, talk save us! My foos won't moos. I feel as old as yonder elm. A tale told of Shaun or Shem? All Livia's daughter-
sons. Dark hawks hear us. Night! Night! My ho head halls. I feel as heavy as yonder stone. Tell me of John or Shaun? Who wereShem and Shaun the living sons or daughters of? Night now!
Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm! Night night! Telmetale of stem or stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of. Night!”
― James Joyce, quote from Finnegans Wake


About the author

James Joyce
Born place: in Rathgar, Dublin, Ireland
Born date February 2, 1882
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