It is in general true that in order to create works of art one has to have leisure. On the other hand I think that one needs to experience resistance in a practical sense, and even that which is poignant to bring out what makes easy reading for others. Too much deprivation of course, means death.

There is no pleasure subtler than the sensation of being a good workman; and in work there is the sense of consanguinity-unconscious as a rule but sometimes conscious.

Honesty - however dangerous - should be as valuable as radium it seems to me.

Hindered characters / seldom have mothers / in Irish stories, but they all have grandmothers.

The sweet air coming into your house on a fine day, from water etched with waves as formal as the scales on a fish.

I'm troubled. I'm dissatisfied. I'm Irish.

Excess is the common substitute for energy.