Politics - I don't know why, but they seem to have a tendency to separate us, to keep us from one another, while nature is always and ever making efforts to bring us together.

That's the Irish all over -- they treat a joke as a serious thing and a serious thing as a joke.

The artist's life is to be where life is, active life, found in neither ivory tower nor concrete shelter; he must be out listening to everything, looking at everything, and thinking it all out afterward.

Oh Lord, give us a sense of humor with courage to manifest it forth, so that we may laugh to shame the pomps, the vanities, the sense of self-importance of the Big Fellows that the world sometimes sends among us, and who try to take our peace away.

There's nothing so passionate as a vested interest disguised as an intellectual conviction.

When one has reached 81... one likes to sit back and let the world turn by itself, without trying to push it.

When I stepped from hard manual work to writing, I just stepped from one kind of hard work to another.