The too perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence.

War is a curtain of dense black fabric across all the hopes and kindliness of mankind. Yet always it has let through some gleams of light, and not--I am not dreaming--it grows threadbare, and here and there and at a thousand points the light is breaking through.

You cannot imagine the craving for rest that I feel-a hunger and thirst. For six long days, since my work was done, my mind has been a whirlpool, swift, unprogressive and incessant, a torrent of thoughts leading nowhere, spinning round swift and steady.

Sometimes, you have to step outside of the person you've been and remember the person you were meant to be. The person you want to be. The person you are.

One believes in Stephen Dedalus as one believes in few characters in fiction.

This little upset across the water doesn't mean anything. Threatened men live long and threatened wars never occur.

What really matters is what you do with what you have.