It gave me a moment of exquisite satisfaction to find myself moving away from civilisation in this rude canvas canoe of a model that has served primitive races since men first went to sea.

There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.

Lord, confound this surly sister, blight her brow with blotch and blister, cramp her larynx, lung and liver, in her guts a galling give her.

I knew the stars, the flowers, and the birds, The gray and wintry sides of many glens, And did but half remember human words, In converse with the mountains, moors, and fens.

The general knowledge of time on the island depends, curiously enough, on the direction of the wind.

Every article on these islands has an almost personal character, which gives this simple life, where all art is unknown, something of the artistic beauty of medieval life.

A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drowned, for he will be going out on a day when he shouldn't.

They're cheering a young lad, the champion playboy of the Western World.

No man at all can be living forever and we must be satisfied.

Foreign languages are another favourite topic, and as these men are bilingual they have a fair notion of what it means to speak and think in many different idioms.

What is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only?

Any religion that does not evolve with time, either gets destroyed or destroys the world.

A poem often begins in the midst of wonderful wandering thoughts that are eager to open wings to fly in the beautiful blue sky of imagination.

Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell

That small difference made all the difference.

You must be a poet, a lady of evil luck desiring to be what you are not, longing to be what you can only visit.

Deeply listening to music opens up new avenues of research I'd never even dreamed of. I feel from now on music should be an essential part of every analysis.

The test of a democracy is not the magnificence of buildings or the speed of automobiles or the efficiency of air transportation, but rather the care given to the welfare of all the people.

They think too little who talk too much.

I don't think action for action's sake is so fun, but when it helps tell the story, I love doing a good fight scene.

There is a profound difference between information and meaning.