I saw a ghost once, about 20 years ago. It took the form of someone coming out of a sleeping body and sitting at the foot of the bed.

I never read in bed, only in my study.

The English have always been greedy for news of times past, with that mixture of fatalism and melancholy which is part of the national character.

I just wanted to be an ordinary, middle-class person. When I was at Cambridge I made great efforts to lose the last remnants of my cockney accent.

The endless chatter of this journey had wearied me.

What captivity has been to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish. For us, the romance of our native land begins only after we have left home; it is really only with other people that we become Irishmen.

Every book for me is a chapter in the long book which will finally be closed on the day of my death.