A Quote by James Joyce

That ideal reader suffering from an ideal insomnia.

James Joyce

Quote Topics

Ideal Insomnia Reader Suffering

Quote Author

James Joyce
Irish - Novelist
February 2, 1882 - January 13, 1941

My conception of my ideal reader has expanded quite a lot as I've matured: Ultimately when I think of my ideal reader, it's someone who's not sitting down with the intention of automatically arguing with the book: somebody who's going to give me enough slack to tell my story.

Paolo Bacigalupi

Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal, and who obeys it: ideal of art, ideal of science, ideal of the gospel virtues, therein lie the springs of great thoughts and great actions; they all reflect light from the Infinite.

Louis Pasteur

My ideal reader is me. And yes, my ideal reader comes with me and is forgiving.

Neil Gaiman

One key to the distinction between mystery and suspense writing involves the relative positions of hero and reader. In the ideal mystery novel, the readers is two steps behind the detective.... The ideal suspense reader, on the other hand, is two steps ahead of the hero.

Carolyn Wheat

It is sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realise his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artists is that they realise their ideal too absolutely. For, when the ideal is realised, it is robbed of its wonder and its mystery, and becomes simply a new starting-point for an ideal that is other than itself.

Oscar Wilde

You put the picture of the ideal person in your head and then someone comes along and they don't fit that ideal at all. But somehow there is something about them that is so attractive. Everyone that I have fallen for has not fit that ideal at all.

Emily VanCamp

Formerly it was the fashion to preach the natural; now it is the ideal. People too often forget that these things are profoundly compatible; that in a beautiful work of imagination the natural should be ideal, and the ideal natural.

August Wilhelm von Schlegel

The situation that has not its duty, its ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy ideal; work it out therefrom, and, working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the ideal is in thyself.

Thomas Carlyle

Even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardour of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

The ideal may seem remote of execution, but the democratic ideal of education is a farcical yet tragic delusion except as the ideal more and more dominates our public system of education.

John Dewey

I simply contend that the middle-class ideal which demands that people be affectionate, respectable, honest and content, that they avoid excitements and cultivate serenity is the ideal that appeals to me, it is in short the ideal of affectionate family life, of honorable business methods.

Gertrude Stein

Don't try to anticipate an ideal reader - or any reader. He/she might exist - but is reading someone else.

Joyce Carol Oates

I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

Nelson Mandela

These, then, are the qualities of my ideal diplomatist. Truth, accuracy, calm, patience, good temper, modesty and loyalty. They are also the qualities of an ideal diplomacy. But, the reader may object, you have forgotten intelligence, knowledge, discernment, prudence, hospitality, charm, industry, courage and even tact. I have not forgotten them. I have taken them for granted.

Harold Nicolson

The torch is a symbol of the Olympic Games, of peace and togetherness. It's a good idea. And this idea is being misused. I believe in the Olympic ideal and in the torch that symbolizes this ideal. We should be condemning not those who have this ideal, but those who try to destroy it.