Dedalus Quotes & Sayings

Both Proust and Joyce record the ways in which human perspectives can be transformed. In Portrait, Stephen Dedalus is constantly undergoing epiphanies, but their effects are transitory: the new synthetic complex quickly falls apart. Proust's characters, by contrast, often achieve lasting changes of perspective. — Philip Kitcher

Sitting in the study hall he opened the lid of his desk and changed the number pasted up inside from seventy-seven to seventy-six. But the Christmas vacation was very far away: but one time it would come because the earth moved round always.
-Stephen Dedalus- — James Joyce

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak. — James Joyce

God! ... Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a great sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them in the original. Thalatta! Thalatta! She is our great sweet mother. Come and look. — James Joyce

Could it be that he, Stephen Dedalus, had done those things? His conscience sighed in answer. Yes, he had done them, secretly, filthily, time after time, and, hardened in sinful impenitence, he had dared to wear the mask of holinesss before the tabernacle itself while his soul within was a living mass of corruption. — James Joyce

And thanks be to God, Johnny, said Mr Dedalus, that we lived so long and did so little harm. — James Joyce

Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, — James Joyce

God and religion before every thing!' Dante cried. 'God and religion before the world.'
Mr Casey raised his clenched fist and brought it down on the table with a crash.
'Very well then,' he shouted hoarsely, 'if it comes to that, no God for Ireland!'
'John! John!' cried Mr Dedalus, seizing his guest by the coat sleeve.
Dante stared across the table, her cheeks shaking. Mr Casey struggled up from his chair and bent across the table towards her, scraping the air from before his eyes with one hand as though he were tearing aside a cobweb.
'No God for Ireland!' he cried, 'We have had too much God in Ireland. Away with God! — James Joyce

- Mark my words, Mr Dedalus, he said. England is in the hands of the jews. In all the highest places: her finance, her press. — Anonymous

Shite and onions! — James Joyce

One believes in Stephen Dedalus as one believes in few characters in fiction. — H.G.Wells

- Dedalus, you're an antisocial being, wrapped up in yourself. I'm not. I'm a democrat and I'll work and act for social liberty and equality among all classes and sexes in the United States of the Europe of the future. — James Joyce

The Housefly
I'm just a little pesky thing,
Flying to eke out a living.
So round and round and round I hiss,
And fill the air with busy bliss.
Of hand and swatter steering clear,
I venture to light on crumbs and beer.
In salad days I was a Grecian king.
War and famine make me sing.
How much they'd like to whack me flat,
With a newspaper or even a baseball bat.
Splat! — David B. Lentz