Spoilt Pleasure Is A Sad, Unseemly Thing;

Expectations Are The Most Perilous Form Of Dream, And When Dreams Do Realise Themselves It Is In The Waking World: The Difference Is Subtly But Often Painfully Felt.

I Am Dead Against Art's Being Self-expression. I See An Inherent Failure In Any Story Which Fails To Detach Itself From The Author-detach Itself In The Sense That A Well-blown Soap-bubble Detaches Itself From The Bowl Of The Blower's Pipe And Spherically Takes Off Into The Air As A New, Whole, Pure, Iridescent World. Whereas The Ill-blown Bubble, As Children Know, Timidly Adheres To The Bowl's Lip, Then Either Bursts Or Sinks Flatly Back Again.

Story Involves Action. Action Towards An End Not To Be Foreseen (by The Reader) But Also Towards An End Which, Having Been Reached, Must Be Seen To Have Been From The Start Inevitable.

Art, At Any Rate In A Novel, Must Be Indissolubly Linked With Craft.

Sport And Death Are The Two Great Socializing Factors In Ireland.