My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.

Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?

You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon Ireland's history in their lineaments trace think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.

Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live