James Joyce Father Quotations

I think a child should be allowed to take his father's or mother's name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.

According to his brother Stanislaus . . . 'Unhappiness was like a vice.' He was cold and distant except with those closest to him, but when, on his mother's death, he discovered a bundle of letters that his father had written to her before they were married, he spent the whole afternoon reading them 'with as little compunction as a doctor or a lawyer . . . puts questions.' When he had finished, Stanislaus asked him: 'Well?' 'Nothing,' James Joyce answered curtly and rather contemptuously. Nothing, thought Stanislaus, for the young poet with a mission, but clearly something for the woman who had kept them all those years of neglect and poverty.

Ulysses is son to Laertes, but he is father to Telemachus, husband to Penelope, lover of Calypso, companion in arms of the Greek warriors around Troy, and King of Ithaca. He was subjected to many trials, but with wisdom and courage came through them all.... he is a complete man as well, a good man.

I don't mean to presume to dictate to you in the slightest degree but why did you leave your father's house? MTo seek misfortune, was Stephen's answer.

Ulysses He ... saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid flatong flower.

And Jesus was a Jew too. Your god. He was a Jew like me. And so was his father.

Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.