To the sun Rome owes its underlying glow, and its air called golden - to me, more the yellow of white wine; like wine it raises agreeability to poetry.

...though one can be callous in Ireland one cannot be wholly opaque or material. An unearthly disturbance works in the spirit; reason can never reconcile one to life; nothing allays the wants one cannot explain.

To walk into history is to be free at once, to be at large among people.

A romantic man often feels more uplifted with two women than with one: his love seems to hit the ideal mark somewhere between two different faces.

What's the matter with this country is the matter with the lot of us individually - our sense of personality is a sense of outrage.

Sport and death are the two great socializing factors in Ireland.

[A writer] should try not to be too far, personally, below the level of his work.