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Sylvia Beach Quotes

Fitting people with books is about as difficult as fitting them with shoes.

Fitting people with books is about as difficult as fitting them with shoes.

Sylvia Beach
Book, Shoes, People
Sylvia Beach (1991). “Shakespeare and Company”, p.105, U of Nebraska Press

I think Hemingway's [book] titles should be awarded first prize in any contest. Each of them is a poem, and their mysterious power over readers contributes to Hemingway's success. His titles have a life of their own, and they have enriched the American vocabulary.

Sylvia Beach
Book, Thinking, Vocabulary
Sylvia Beach (1991). “Shakespeare and Company”, p.83, U of Nebraska Press

I think [James] Joyce sometimes enjoyed misleading his readers. He said to me that history was like that parlor game where someone whispers something to the person next to him, who repeats it not very distinctly to the next person, and so on until, by the time the last person hears it, it comes out completely transformed. Of course, as he explained to me, the meaning in Finnegans Wake is obscure because it is a 'nightpiece.' I think, too, that, like the author's sight, the work is often blurred.

Sylvia Beach
Thinking, Games, Sight

[On working with James Joyce:] So, either you run your publishing business far away, where your writer can't get at it, or you publish right alongside of him - and have much more fun - and much more expense.

Sylvia Beach
Running, Fun, Far Away

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