The wrong way always seems the more reasonable.

The wrong way always seems the more reasonable.

Everybody sets out to do something, and everybody does something, but no one does what he sets out to do.

Remorse: beholding heaven and feeling hell.

Reality can destroy the dream; why shouldn't the dream destroy reality?

Taking something from one man and making it worse is plagiarism.

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.

The difficulty in life is the choice.

Art must be parochial in the beginning to be cosmopolitan in the end.

'The Dublin Magazine' has been edited with good taste, and it is very agreeable reading, but to speak quite candidly, I do not believe in the future of any literary journal any more than I believe in the future of the Trinity.

A man of letters never objects to a slum. He sharpens his pen there.

An idea has been running in my head that books lose and gain qualities in the course of time, and I have worried over it a good deal, for what seemed to be a paradox, I felt to be a truth.

An idea is so impersonal; it is yours today and the whole world's tomorrow.

Dublin dwindles so beautifully; there is no harsh separation between it and the country. It fades away, whereas London seems to devour the country; an army of buildings come and take away a beautiful park, and you never seem to get quite out of sight of a row of houses.

England produced Shakespeare, and the British Empire the six-shilling novel.

Every race gets the religion it deserves, and only as policemen, pugilists, and priests have they succeeded, here and there a successful lawyer, but nothing more serious.

I do not believe in a universal religion any more than I believe in a universal language. My feeling is that people have to make their own religion as they have to make their arts and their parishes, and that they must find their own salvation; the salvation mongers are of not much avail.

I have written 30,000 words in a month - think of it - 30,000! I hope I am putting the right number of naughts: an average of a thousand words a day! For thirty days!

Isn't it strange that religious prejudices - beliefs none possess, not even the saints, so they have lamented - divide brothers and sons from their fathers. You see, I except mothers and sisters; the female is not a religious animal. If she were, the world would have ceased long ago.

Men never get free from morality, only women.

Some men spend their lives watching bees and ants, noting down the habits of these insects; my pleasure is to watch the human mind, noting how unselfish instincts rise to the surface and sink back again, making way for selfish instincts, each equally necessary, for the world would perish were it to become entirely selfish or entirely unselfish.

The right I claim is that of every human being to speak what he believes to be the truth to whomever he may meet on his way.

The right of property holds good in all society; but in the West, ethics invade the personal life in a manner unknown to the East, so much so that the Oriental stands agape at our folly, knowing well that every man brings different instincts and ideas into the world with him.

The truth is that I am in love with Dublin. I think it is the most beautiful town that I have ever seen, mountains at the back and the sea in front, and long roads winding through decaying suburbs and beautiful woods.

To what better purpose can a man's energy be devoted, and his talents, than the resuscitation of his country's language?

You will find in me a middle aged man with a career behind me sufficiently brilliant to enable me to talk about many things interestingly; and I am not an unkindly soul, I believe.

You and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels but I have seen thee and thou art enough.

The truth is that I am in love with Dublin. I think it is the most beautiful town that I have ever seen mountains at the back and the sea in front and long roads winding through decaying suburbs and beautiful woods.

Dublin dwindles so beautifully there is no harsh separation between it and the country. It fades away whereas London seems to devour the country an army of buildings come and take away a beautiful park and you never seem to get quite out of sight of a row of houses.

You should never feel comfortable. There is something wrong if you are. You should always feel under threat, on the edge of your seat and pushing yourself. Win one and you want to win more. It's never-ending.

Our military commanders have said over and over again that a timetable for withdrawal sends the wrong message to our troops, but more importantly to our enemy.

Singularity shows something wrong in the mind.

There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.

When women go wrong, men go right after them.

I've seen many actors go awry by making the wrong choices early on.

By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don't hesitate.

So my idea of neurotic is spending too much time trying to correct a wrong. When I feel that I'm doing that, then I snap out of it.

There is a contest old as Eden, which still goes on - the conflict between right and wrong, between error and truth. In this conflict every human being has a part.

The Germans certainly - the intelligence service believed that there were WMD. It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing.

Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is very good company by the way.

My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.

There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.

For me, romance isn't an over-the-top act. It's someone offering to help and to support me. Or if that person thinks I'm making the wrong decision, he'll tell me. I want him to be honest, because being that honest takes a lot of guts.

Writing allows me the time to travel and see the world, which is what I always wanted to do. I'd really like to have been Sir Richard Francis Burton, but it's the wrong century.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it's unbelievable!

I can do whatever I want. They will tell me if what I am doing is stupid or a total waste of time. I may tell them that they are wrong, and we will come to an agreement.

When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.

I don't make mistakes. I make prophecies which immediately turn out to be wrong.

To be honest, I don't want No. 1's anymore. Now, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind the odd few, but I'd also like a record going in at eight and staying around.