I suspect victims; they win in the long run.

The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.

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.

... into the novel goes such taste as I have for rational behaviour and social portraiture. The short story, as I see it to be, allows for what is crazy about humanity: obstinacies, inordinate heroisms, "immortal longings.

When one is a child, the disposition of objects, tables and chairs and doors, seems part of the natural order: a house-move lets in chaos - as it does for a dog.

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.

I think the main thing, don't you, is to keep the show on the road.