In the constellation of geniuses, he is a blinding light and father of us all. (I exclude Shakespeare because for Shakespeare no human epithet is enough.)… I think Ulysses is the most diverting, brilliant, intricate, and unboring book that I have ever read. I can pick it up at any time, read a few pages, and feel that I have just had a brain transfusion. As for his being intimidating, it doesn’t arise—he is simply out of bounds, beyond us all, “the far Azores,” as he might call it.
Edna O’Brien, interviewed by Philip Roth in Shop Talk
