"I fear that I have been a bad boy, but I have not been a dull one."

"I am constantly preoccupied with the idea of writing a book about Dublin."

"I am quite content to go down to posterity as a scissors-and-paste man."

"I am a man who has always been a seeker of truth."

"I have been writing for twenty years, and I have only just begun to learn how to write."