Dubliners Quotes
"There was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke."
"Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis."
"He had often said to me: 'I am not long for this world,' and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true."
"If I go," I said, "I will bring you something."
"She had consented to go away, to leave her home."
"Even now, though she was over nineteen, she sometimes felt herself in danger of her father's violence."
"Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."
"She always gave her entire wages--seven shillings--and Harry always sent up what he could but the trouble was to get any money from her father."
"It was hard work--a hard life--but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life."
"He would give her life, perhaps love, too. But she wanted to live. Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness."
"All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart."
"The room grew doubly hot and Segouin's task grew harder each moment: there was even danger of personal spite."
"He was tired of knocking about, of pulling the devil by the tail, of shifts and intrigues."
"He suffered all the pangs and thrills of his friend's situation as well as those of his own."
"She dealt with moral problems as a cleaver deals with meat: and in this case she had made up her mind."
"She was an outraged mother. She had allowed him to live beneath her roof, assuming that he was a man of honour and he had simply abused her hospitality."
"Some mothers would be content to patch up such an affair for a sum of money; she had known cases of it. But she would not do so."
"All his long years of service gone for nothing! All his industry and diligence thrown away!"
"Once you are married you are done for, it said."
"He comforted her feebly, telling her not to cry, that it would be all right, never fear."
"He remembered well, with the curious patient memory of the celibate, the first casual caresses her dress, her breath, her fingers had given him."
"He felt how useless it was to struggle against fortune, this being the burden of wisdom which the ages had bequeathed to him."
"He felt acutely the contrast between his own life and his friend's and it seemed to him unjust."
"He wished to vindicate himself in some way, to assert his manhood."
"You'll put your head in the sack," repeated Little Chandler stoutly, "like everyone else if you can find the girl."
"He felt his great body again aching for the comfort of the public-house."
"He was so enraged that he wrote Bernard Bernard instead of Bernard Bodley and had to begin again on a clean sheet."
"He longed to execrate aloud, to bring his fist down on something violently."
"He felt savage and thirsty and revengeful, annoyed with himself and with everyone else."
"The fog had begun to chill him and he wondered could he touch Pat in O'Neill's."
"He longed to spend it in the bars, drinking with his friends amid the glare of gas and the clatter of glasses."
"It's hard to know what way to bring up children."
"We cannot give ourselves, it said: we are our own."
"The workman gets all kicks and no halfpence."
"The honour of Dublin [should not be] in the mud to please a German monarch."
"If this man was alive, we'd have no talk of an address of welcome."
"The working-man is not looking for fat jobs for his sons and nephews and cousins."
"I suppose he forgets the time his little old father kept the hand-me-down shop in Mary's Lane."
"He is dead. Our Uncrowned King is dead. O, Erin, mourn with grief and woe For he lies dead whom the fell gang Of modern hypocrites laid low."
"To tell you my private and candid opinion," he said, "I think he's a man from the other camp. He's a spy of Colgan's, if you ask me."
"But there's a certain little nobleman with a cock-eye --you know the patriot I'm alluding to?"
"That's a fellow now that'd sell his country for fourpence--ay--and go down on his bended knees and thank the Almighty Christ he had a country to sell."
"What we want in this country, as I said to old Ward, is capital. The King's coming here will mean an influx of money into this country."
"He's a jolly fine decent fellow, if you ask me, and no damn nonsense about him."
"Shame on the coward, caitiff hands That smote their Lord or with a kiss Betrayed him to the rabble-rout Of fawning priests--no friends of his."
"He fell as fall the mighty ones, Nobly undaunted to the last, And death has now united him With Erin's heroes of the past."
"I'm not done with you yet," she said. "But I'm done with you," said Mr. Holohan.
"You must speak to the secretary. It's not my business. I'm a great fellow fol-the-diddle-I-do."
"They would think that he was airing his superior education."
"But Lily seldom made a mistake in the orders, so that she got on well with her three mistresses."
"But as for Gretta there, she'd walk home in the snow if she were let."
"The next thing he'll buy me will be a diving suit."
"It's nothing very wonderful, but Gretta thinks it very funny because she says the word reminds her of Christy Minstrels."
"What a comfort it is to have a girl like that, one you can depend on!"
"It is a tradition that is unique as far as my experience goes among the modern nations."
"As long as this one roof shelters the good ladies aforesaid...the tradition of genuine warm-hearted courteous Irish hospitality...is still alive among us."
"A new generation is growing up in our midst, a generation actuated by new ideas and new principles."
"But we are living in a sceptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age."
"Our path through life is strewn with many such sad memories: and were we to brood upon them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely with our work among the living."
"Here we are gathered together for a brief moment from the bustle and rush of our everyday routine."
"The task would be an invidious one and one beyond my poor powers."
"Let us drink to their health, wealth, long life, happiness and prosperity and may they long continue to hold the proud and self-won position which they hold in their profession and the position of honour and affection which they hold in our hearts."
"It makes me feel cold to look at you two gentlemen muffled up like that. I wouldn't like to face your journey home at this hour."
"There was grace and mystery in her attitude as if she were a symbol of something."
"He asked himself what is a woman standing on the stairs in the shadow, listening to distant music, a symbol of."
"A sudden tide of joy went leaping out of his heart."
"The blood went bounding along his veins; and the thoughts went rioting through his brain, proud, joyful, tender, valorous."
"He longed to recall to her those moments, to make her forget the years of their dull existence together and remember only their moments of ecstasy."
"Why is it that words like these seem to me so dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?"
"Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love."
"Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age."
"His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead."
"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."