It's undeserved success that people are so terribly afraid of losing; they know they haven't any way, themselves, of ever getting it back again.

That's the way it is with influence, you know; if you don't use it all the time, people will forget you have it.

someone had tried to warn me of the kind of catastrophe that is likely to occur when you involve yourself too closely in one of those destinies that is ringed around by the transient tinsel of human applause.

You may have noticed there are three things an Irishman always puts his soul in: his religion, his sports, and his politics. If you ever find an Irishman who is wishy-washy on any one of those, you can make up your mind to it he is not the true article at all.

An Irish wedding is a tame thing to an Irish funeral.

I could remember the house on Lexington Street, where the mortgage hung over our heads almost as tangibly as the roof, and we still managed to enjoy life.

The Irish are never at peace but when they're fighting.