Nothing can happen nowhere. The locale of the happening always colours the happening, and often, to a degree, shapes it.

Forgiveness should be an act, but this is a state with him.

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

Art is for [the Irish] inseparable from artifice: of that, the theatre is the home. Possibly, it was England made me a novelist.

Never to lie is to have no lock on your door, you are never wholly alone.

Temperamentally, the writer exists on happenings, on contacts, conflicts, action and reaction, speed, pressure, tension. Were he acontemplative purely, he would not write.

Chance is better than choice; it is more lordly. Chance is God, choice is man.