Darling, I don't want you; I've got no place for you; I only want what you give. I don't want the whole of anyone.... What you want is the whole of me-isn't it, isn't it?-and the whole of me isn't there for anybody. In that full sense you want me I don't exist.

The craft of the novelist does lie first of all in story-telling.

Ireland is a great country to die or be married in.

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

Darling, I don't want you; I've got no place for you; I only want what you give. I don't want the whole of anyone.... What you want is the whole of me-isn't it, isn't it?-and the whole of me isn't there for anybody. In that full sense you want me I don't exist.

The paradox of romantic love -- that what one possesses, one can no longer desire -- was at work.

Art, at any rate in a novel, must be indissolubly linked with craft.