I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood.

There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory than in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride more than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of joy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the senses.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away

You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages.

We Irish will never achieve anything; but we are the greatest talkers since the Greeks

I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who would call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.