A translation is no translation unless it will give you the music of a poem along with the words of it.

In a good play every speech should be as fully flavored as a nut or apple.

There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.

The general knowledge of time on the island depends, curiously enough, on the direction of the wind.

I'm a good scholar when it comes to reading but a blotting kind of writer when you give me a pen.

Foreign languages are another favourite topic, and as these men are bilingual they have a fair notion of what it means to speak and think in many different idioms.

In the middle classes the gifted son of a family is always the poorest -- usually a writer or artist with no sense for speculation -- and in a family of peasants, where the average comfort is just over penury, the gifted son sinks also, and is soon a tramp on the roadside.