I have desired, like every artist, to create a little world out of the beautiful, pleasant, and significant things of this marred and clumsy world, and to show in a vision something of the face of Ireland to any of my own people who would look where I bid them. I have therefore written down accurately and candidly much that I have heard and seen, and, except by way of commentary, nothing that I have merely imagined.

The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.

What made us dream that he could comb gray hair?

Hearts with one purpose alone/Through summer and winter seem/Enchanted to a stone/To trouble the living stream.

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

Man has created death.

We are closed in, and the key is turned / On our uncertainty.