[Taxacom] James Joyce on parsimony

[Barry Roth]

One day [Joyce and Oliver St. John Gogarty] saw Yeats's father, John Butler Yeats, walking on the strand, and Gogarty, prodded by Joyce, said to him, "Good morning, Mr. Yeats, would you be so good as to lend us two shillings?" The old man looked from one to the other and retorted, "Certainly not. In the first place I have no money, and if I had it and lent it to you, you and your friend would spend it on drink." Joyce came forward and said gravely, as Gogarty afterwards recalled, "We cannot speak about that which is not." Yeats had already moved on, so Joyce had to make his point only to Gogarty, "You see, the razor of Occam forbids the introduction of superfluous arguments. When he said he had no money that was enough. He had no right to discuss the possible use of the non-existent."   
 
--Richard Ellman, "James Joyce"
 
Barry Roth