I am a sort of collector of religions: and the curious thing is that I find I can believe in them all.

Treat a friend as a person who may someday become your enemy; an enemy as a person who may someday become your friend.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

Nationalism must now be added to the refuse pile of superstitions. We are now citizens of the world, and the man who divides the race into elect Irishmen and reprobate foreign devils (especially Englishmen) had better live on the Blaskets where he can admire himself without disturbance.

If you cannot have what you believe in you must believe in what you have.

The pianoforte is the most important of all musical instruments; its invention was to music what the invention of printing was to poetry.

A pornographic novelist is one who exploits the sexual instinct as a prostitute does. A legitimate sex novel elucidates it or brings out its poetry, tragedy, or comedy.