Everything is very quiet, the streets are never crowded, and the people one dislikes are out of town.

What must novel dialogue . . . really be and do? It must be pointed, intentional, relevant. It must crystallize situation. It must express character. It must advance plot. During dialogue, the characters confront one another. The confrontation is in itself an occasion. Each one of these occasions, throughout the novel, is unique.

Sacrificers ... are not the ones to pity. The ones to pity are those that they sacrifice. Oh, the sacrificers, they get it both ways. A person knows themselves that they're able to do without.

But surely love wouldn't get so much talked about if there were not something in it?

Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that we live, if we do.

The Irish landowner, partly from laziness but also from an indifferent delicacy, does not interfere in the lives of the people round. Sport and death are the two great socializing factors in Ireland, but these cannot operate the whole time: on the whole, the landowner leaves his tenants and work-people to make their own mistakes, while he makes his.

Exhibitionism and a nervous wish for concealment, for anonymity, thus battle inside the buyer of any piece of clothing.