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I've been working hard on [ulysses] all day," said joyce. does that mean that you have written a great deal?" i said. two sentences," said joyce. i looked sideways but joyce was not smiling. i thought of [french novelist gustave] flaubert. "you've been seeking the mot juste?" i said. no," said joyce. "i have the words already. what i am seeking is the perfect order of words in the sentence.

-James Joyce

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I've Been Working Hard On [ulysses] All

James Joyce

I've been working hard on [ulysses] all day," said joyce. does that mean that you have written a great deal?" i said. two sentences," said joyce. i looked sideways but joyce was not smiling. i thought of [french novelist gustave] flaubert. "you've been seeking the mot juste?" i said. no," said joyce. "i have the words already. what i am seeking is the perfect order of words in the sentence.

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    <p style="font-size: 1.2rem; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 10px;">"i&#039;ve been working hard on [ulysses] all day,&quot; said joyce. does that mean that you have written a great deal?&quot; i said. two sentences,&quot; said joyce. i looked sideways but joyce was not smiling. i thought of [french novelist gustave] flaubert. &quot;you&#039;ve been seeking the mot juste?&quot; i said. no,&quot; said joyce. &quot;i have the words already. what i am seeking is the perfect order of words in the sentence."</p>
    <footer style="font-size: 1rem; font-weight: bold;">— James Joyce</footer>
    <p style="margin-top: 15px; font-size: 0.85rem;"><a href="https://pjdigitalmarketing.com/quote/ive-been-working-hard-on-ulysses-all-day-said-joyce-does-that-shmoz" style="color: #8b5cf6; text-decoration: none;">View this quote on Pjdigitalmarketing.com</a></p>
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More From James Joyce

A friend came to visit james joyce one day and found the great man sprawled across his writing desk in a posture of utter despair. james, what’s wrong?' the friend asked. 'is it the work?' joyce indicated assent without even raising his head to look at his friend. of course it was the work; isn’t it always? how many words did you get today?' the friend pursued. joyce (still in despair, still sprawled facedown on his desk): 'seven.' seven? but james… that’s good, at least for you.' yes,' joyce said, finally looking up. 'i suppose it is… but i don’t know what order they go in!

I turn sentences around. that's my life. i write a sentence and then i turn it around. then i look at it and i turn it around again. then i have lunch. then i come back in and write another sentence. then i have tea and turn the new sentence around. then i read the two sentences over and turn them both around. then i lie down on my sofa and think. then i get up and throw them out and start from the beginning.

The first sentence of the truth is always the hardest. each of us had a first sentence, and most of us found the strength to say it out loud to someone who deserved to hear it. what we hoped, and what we found, was that the second sentence of the truth is always easier than the first, and the third sentence is even easier than that. suddenly you are speaking the truth in paragraphs, in pages. the fear, the nervousness, is still there, but it is joined by a new confidence. all along, you've used the first sentence as a lock. but now you find that it's the key.

It's kind of like sentencing. a lot of people say that we have a heavy sentence for this crime and a light sentence for another crime, and what we ought to do is reduce the heavy sentence so it's more in line with the other. wrong. in most cases we ought to increase the light sentence and make it compatible with the heavy sentence, and be serious about punishment because we are becoming too tolerant as a society, folks, especially of crime, in too many parts of the country.

I have not written a perfect sentence, in the literary sense. it's a lot easier to throw a perfect pass than to write a perfect sentence, if that sentence is meant to perform more than a mechanical function.

The book works better if i know everything i can about the ending. not just what happens, but how it happens and what the language is; not just the last sentence, but enough of the sentences surrounding that last sentence to know what the tone of voice is. i imagined it as something almost musical. then you are writing toward something; you know the sound of your voice at the end of the story. that's how you want to sound in those final sentences: the degree that it is uplifting or not, the degree that it is melancholic or not.

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