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.

The profoundly humorous writers are humorous because they are responsive to the hopeless, uncouth, concatenations of life.

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

I shall never be as old as I was between 20 and 30.

Like many popular best-sellers, he was a very sad and solemn man who took himself too seriously and his art not seriously enough.

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

The mark of genius is an incessant activity of mind. Genius is a spiritual greed.