“To learn one must be humble. But life is the great teacher.”

“Everything in Paris is gay," said Ignatius Gallaher. "They believe in enjoying life--and don't you think they'reright? If you want to enjoy yourself properly you must go to Paris. And, mind you, they've a great feeling forthe Irish there. When they heard I was from Ireland they were ready to eat me, man.”

“He imagined that he stood near Emma in a wide land and, humbly and in tears, bent and kissed the elbow of her sleeve.”

“His eyes were dimmed with tears and, looking humbly up to heaven, he wept for the innocence he had lost.”

“Like the tender fires of stars moments of their life together, that no one knew of or would ever know of, broke upon and illuminated his memory.”

“Love between man and woman is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse, and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse.”

“Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies on green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them there after a few thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once...”