One can forgive Shakespeare anything, except one's own bad lines. - Peter Ackroyd

I believe that the gods themselves are frightened of the world which they have fashioned.

The English can laugh and at the same time strike you down, without the least compunction. It is the secret of their success as a nation.

What captivity has been to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish. For us, the romance of our native land begins only after we have left home; it is really only with other people that we become Irishmen.