My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis.

God made food; the devil the cooks.

I don't want to die. Damn death. Long live life.

When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water.

Evening had fallen. A rim of the young moon cleft the pale waste of sky line, the rim of a silver hoop embedded in grey sand: and the tide was flowing in fast to the land with a low whisper of her waves, islanding a few last figures in distant pools.

Interpretations of interpretations interpreted.

The incompatibility of aquacity with the erratic originality of genius.