When I came back to Dublin I was courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

New York is my Lourdes, where I go for spiritual refreshment... a place where you're least likely to be bitten by a wild goat.

The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you.

It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.

I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.

They took away our land, our language, and our religion; but they could never harness our tongues.

The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.

I only take a drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.

I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.

The only thing I envy in young people is their livers.

Sometimes the best answers to prayer are the ones God doesn't answer.

When leaders lack expertise, nothing else works

Underwater, I experience space with my body. I'll see a school of fish gathering and moving together and I'll exclaim, 'This is architecture.'

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.

What have you given the world it never possessed before you came?

He who has wealth has friends.

Writers are idiots with Underwoods.

One genius has made many clever artists.

Is that the truth, Jimmy?" I ask without looking at him. "It's the truth and it come to ya!" I smile.

Movies are a collective art. Art by proxy.