to leap is not only to leap, it is to hit the ground somewhere.

There's something so showy about desperation, it takes hard wits to see it's a grandiose form of funk.

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

Where would the Irish be without someone to be Irish at?

in my experience one thing you don't learn from is anything anyone set up to be a lesson; what you are to know you pick up as you go along.

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

A novel which survives, which withstands and outlives time, does do something more than merely survive. It does not stand still. It accumulates round itself the understanding of all these persons who bring to it something of their own. It acquires associations, it becomes a form of experience in itself, so that two people who meet can often make friends, find an approach to each other, because of this one great common experience they have had.