Ireland is not at all a simple place, and in many ways it is spare and sad. It has no wealth, no power, no stability, no influence, no fashion, no size. Its only real arts are song and drama and poem. But Limerick alone has two thousand ruined castles and surely that many practicing poets.

When two people marry they become in the eyes of the law one person, and that one person is the husband.

Huge herds of vigorous, curious, open-eyed Americans freely roaming the world are, it seems to me, quite possibly a vital national resource today as at no other time in our history.

Letters are expectation packaged in an envelope.

trying to squash a rumor is like trying to unring a bell.

Rumor and gossip, like sound itself, appear to travel by wave-effect, sheer preposterosity being no barrier.

This is what holidays, travels, vacations are about. It is not really rest or even leisure we chase. We strain to renew our capacity for wonder to shock ourselves into astonishment once again.