Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

Men are governed by lines of intellect - women: by curves of emotion.

For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.

But we are living in a sceptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hyper-educated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which belonged to an older day.

I will not say nothing. I will defend my church and my religion when it is insulted and spit on.

It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked looking-glass of a servant.

It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born.