It's all in the art. You get no credit for living.

The present has its élan because it is always on the edge of the unknown and one misunderstands the past unless one remembers that this unknown was once part of its nature.

It is less the business of the novelist to tell us what happened than to show how it happened.

Life — how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere.

It is often said that in Ireland there is an excess of genius unsustained by talent; but there is talent in the tongues.

The makers of the short story have rarely been good novelists.

The businessman who is a novelist is able to drop in on literature and feel no suicidal loss of esteem if the lady is not at home, and he can spend his life preparing without fuss for the awful interview.