Ulysses (novel)

"Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery."

"Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words. Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest. In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks. They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of death is in them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak their will."

"As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, from day to day, their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist weave and unweave his image."

"The mocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious."

"A father, said Stephen, battling against hopelessness, is a necessary evil."

"Paternity may be a legal fiction. Who is the father of any son that any son should love him or he any son?"

"— But its no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. Thats not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that its the very opposite of that that is really life. — What? says Alf. — Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred."

"It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born."

"Absence makes the heart grow younger."

"But O, oblige me by taking away that knife. I cant look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history."

"At the same time he inwardly chuckled over his repartee to the blood and ouns champion about his God being a jew. People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled them up was a bite from a sheep."

"Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices filled with crustcrumbs, fried hencods roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine."