# Ulysses - Author: [James Joyce](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce.md) - Quotes: 50 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses ## Quotes > I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/i-was-a-flower.md) Topics: [love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love.md), [passion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/passion.md) > It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don't spin it out too long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent, aflame, crowned, high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the ethereal bosom, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere all soaring all around about the all, the endlessnessnessness... [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/it-soared-a-bird.md) Topics: [music](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/music.md) > And they beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend to the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees over Donohoe's in Little Green Street like a shot off a shovel. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/and-they-beheld.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md) > the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/the-sun-shines.md) Topics: [love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love.md) > O Jamesy let me up out of this. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/o-jamesy-let.md) > Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and the dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came naked forth from his mother's womb so naked shall he wend him at the last for to go as he came. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/therefore-everyman-look.md) Topics: [death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death.md), [transience](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/transience.md) > But O, oblige me by taking away that knife. I can't look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/but-o-oblige.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md) > — But it's no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life. > > — What? says Alf. > > — Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/but-its-no-use.md) Topics: [love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love.md), [hatred](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hatred.md) > He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/he-kissed-the.md) Topics: [passion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/passion.md) > Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me. > > Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop. > > — By Jesus, says he, I'll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy name. By Jesus, I'll crucify him so I will. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/your-god-was.md) Topics: [hypocrisy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy.md), [hatred](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hatred.md) > she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear them I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice I hope Ill never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/she-had-too.md) Topics: [women](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/women.md) > The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/the-heaventree-of-stars.md) Topics: [beauty](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty.md) > Absence makes the heart grow younger. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/absence-makes-the.md) > If he had smiled why would he have smiled? To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/if-he-had.md) Topics: [illusions](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illusions.md) > (Of Shakespeare) A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery (243) [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/of-shakespeare-a-man.md) Topics: [talent](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/talent.md), [mistakes](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes.md) > I love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with the fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/i-love-flowers.md) Topics: [nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature.md) > Tap. Tap. A stripling, blind, with a tapping cane came taptaptapping by Daly’s window where a mermaid hair all streaming (but he couldn’t see) blew whiffs of a mermaid (blind couldn’t), mermaid, coolest whiff of all. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/tap-tap-a-stripling.md) > Love loves to love love. p. 327 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/love-loves-to-love.md) Topics: [love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love.md) > It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/it-is-as-painful.md) > 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. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/at-the-same.md) > 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. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/as-we-or-mother.md) Topics: [art](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art.md) > Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/shakespeare-is-the.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > Come forth Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/come-forth-lazarus.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md) > — You don't want anything for breakfast? > > A sleepy soft grunt answered: > > — Mn. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/you-dont-want.md) > Unsheathe your dagger definitions. Horseness is the whatness of allhorse. Streams of tendency and eons they worship. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/unsheathe-your-dagger.md) > — Mrkgnao! the cat said loudly. > > She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively and long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits narrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to the dresser, took the jug Hanlon's milkman had just filled for him, poured warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor. > > — Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/mrkgnao-the-cat.md) Topics: [cats](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/cats.md) > Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/bosh-stephen-said.md) Topics: [talent](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/talent.md), [mistakes](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes.md) > If others have their will Ann hath a way. By cock, she was to blame. She put the comether on him, sweet and twentysix. The greyeyed goddess who bends over the boy Adonis, stooping to conquer, as prologue to the swelling act, is a boldfaced Stratford wench who tumbles in a cornfield a lover younger than herself. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/if-others-have.md) Topics: [passion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/passion.md) > Paternity may be a legal fiction. Who is the father of any son that any son should love him or he any son? [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/paternity-may-be-a-legal.md) > His own image to a man with that queer thing genius is the standard of all experience, material and moral. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/his-own-image.md) Topics: [talent](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/talent.md) > — They are sundered by a bodily shame so steadfast that the criminal annals of the world, stained with all other incests and bestialities, hardly record its breach. Sons with mothers, sires with daughters, lesbic sisters, loves that dare not speak their name, nephews with grandmothers, jailbirds with keyholes, queens with prize bulls. The son unborn mars beauty: born, he brings pain, divides affection, increases care. He is a new male: his growth is his father's decline, his youth his father's envy, his friend his father's enemy. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/they-are-sundered.md) Topics: [family](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/family.md) > He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/he-kills-his.md) Topics: [hypocrisy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy.md) > The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/the-snotgreen-sea.md) > A father, said Stephen, battling against hopelessness, is a necessary evil. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/a-father-said.md) > Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/stately-plump-buck.md) > It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/it-is-a-symbol.md) Topics: [art](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art.md) > Monsieur de la Palisse, Stephen sneered, was alive fifteen minutes before his death. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/monsieur-de-la-palisse.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md) > History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/history-stephen-said.md) Topics: [history](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history.md) > I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/i-fear-those.md) Topics: [words](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words.md) > — I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know that? No. And do you know why? > > He frowned sternly on the bright air. > > — Why, sir? Stephen asked, beginning to smile. > > — Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly. > > A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat dragging after it a rattling chain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing, his lifted arms waving to the air. > > — She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter as he stamped on gaitered feet over the gravel of the path. That’s why. > > On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/i-just-wanted.md) Topics: [hypocrisy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy.md) > If you and I could only work together we might do something for the island. Helenise it. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/if-you-and.md) > Vulcanic lake, the dead sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind would lift those waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy's clutching a noggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more. Dead: an old woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the world. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/vulcanic-lake-the.md) Topics: [death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death.md) > The mocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/the-mocker-is-never.md) > Our national epic has yet to be written. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/our-national-epic.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > 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. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/coffined-thoughts-around.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants, willing to be dethroned. p. 28 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/secrets-silent-stony.md) > 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 hencod's roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/mr-leopold-bloom.md) > Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying: > > — That is God. > > Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee! > > — What? Mr Deasy asked. > > — A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/stephen-jerked-his.md) Topics: [god](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god.md) > Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/kingstown-pier-stephen.md) > You know Manningham's story of the burgher's wife who bade Dick Burbage to her bed after she had seen him in Richard III and how Shakespeare, overhearing, without more ado about nothing, took the cow by the horns and, when Burbage came knocking at the gate, answered from the capon's blankets: William the conqueror came before Richard III. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/you-know-manninghams.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md)