On the other hand, at some level the mass of unresolved issues in Northern Ireland does influence the fact that there are so many good writers in the place.

In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.

The sufficiency of merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.

If the individual is a unit in a corporate mass, his life is not merely brutish and short, but dull and mechanical.

The moon looks upon many night flowers; the night flowers see but one moon.

Scenery is fine – but human nature is finer.

We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons.

We can influence who we will be tomorrow, for tomorrow can only be built on today.

We have finally started to notice that there is real curative value in local herbs and remedies. In fact, we are also becoming aware that there are little or no side effects to most natural...

Presidential money is almost like the housing bubble. It’s growing at such an astronomical rate, you think it can’t get any bigger.

It’s hard to detect good luck – it looks so much like something you’ve earned.

That is why I believe that art is so much more significant than either economics or philosophy. It is the direct measure of man’s spiritual vision.

Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.

Judge of a jest when you have done laughing.

I suppose for whatever reason I actively welcome being put down, something which perhaps goes back to my upbringing – that accusation of not being worthy which could be laid at one’s door.

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.

Beware of him that is slow to anger; for when it is long coming, it is the stronger when it comes, and the longer kept. Abused patience turns to fury.

A man of personality can formulate ideals, but only a man of character can achieve them.

The sensitive artist knows that a bitter wind is blowing.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.

Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.

One will never again look at a birch tree, after the Robert Frost poem, in exactly the same way.

Almost any difficulty will move in the face of honesty. When I am honest I never feel stupid. And when I am honest I am automatically humble.

Heaven finds an ear when sinners find a tongue.

In the evolution of mankind there has always been a certain degree of social coherence.

When sparrows build and the leaves break forth My old sorrow wakes and cries.

It appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy citadel.

When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.

Security is an attempt to try to make the universe static so that we feel safe.