On James Joyce, Language and Ulysses, by Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday

"I was told that he was a very talented English writer. When I was introduced to James Joyce a few days later, he firmly denied any connection with England. He was Irish, he said. He did write in the English language, but his thinking was not English, nor did he want it to be. "I would like," he told me, "a language above other languages, a language serving them all. I can't express myself entirely in English without making myself part of a certain tradition." I didn't quite understand this. I did not know that he was already writing Ulysses at the time".

Maybe that explains why I've never been able to get into Ulysses? My loss. I'm much happier with W.B. Yeats.

But I still remember that day going to Howth.