"My intention is to write a book that will make the critics tear their hair out."

"I am sorry that I have not been able to write to you more often, but I have been very busy, and I am also very lazy."

"Silence, exile, and cunning."

"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 been reborn too much."