Solitary and farouche people don't have relationships; they are quite unrelatable.

Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat.

There is no end to the violations committed by children on children, quietly talking alone.

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 can't see or feel the conflict between love and religion. To me, they're the same thing.

...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.

rudeness to Mrs. Dosely was like dropping a pat of butter on to a hot plate - it slid and melted away.