His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

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.

You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.

This race and this country and this life produced me, he said. I shall express myself as I am.

I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.

I'd love to have the whole place swimming in roses

He thought that he was sick in his heart if you could be sick in that place.