"I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book."

"I am a man who has always been a student of life."

"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

"I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality."

"I am a man who has suffered much, but I have never lost my sense of humor."