"Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?"

"Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next. Is he ever wrong?"

"With the smell of beer I try to get the smell of death off me. And only the smell of death will get the smell of beer off you, like all the drinkers whose graves I have to dig."

"Life, thought the naked man, was a hell, with rare moments recalling some ancient paradise."

"The cemetery is the home of those who are not here, come in."

"...Life is nothing "but "trading smells."

"In politics, as in every other sphere of life, there are two important principles for a man of any sense: don't cherish too many illusions, and never stop believing that every little bit helps."

"The ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death."

"But ah'm hugging Janey and thinking about how much a life can change in the time it takes tae fix up."

"His friends will decline in their numbers as his needs increase. The inverse, or perverse, mathematics ay life."

"... Basically, we live a short, disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up oor lives wi shite, things like careers and relationships tae delude oorsels that it isnae aw totally pointless."

"Thir must be less tae life than this"

"You can only live in the world you ken. The rest is just wishful thinking or paranoia."

"By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be."

"But death is not easy, and life can win by simulating it."

"There are no spare unrecorded encapsulated moments in which we can behave 'anyhow' and then expect to resume life where we left off."

"We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out."

"How huge it is, how empty, this great space for which I have been longing all my life. Still no letters."

"That's how vile i am! I live Ireland, I breathe Ireland, and Christ how I loathe it, I wish I were a bloody Scot, that's how bloody awful it is being Irish!"

"One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats, and if some of these can be inexpensive and quickly procured so much the better."

"As we live our precarious lives on the brink of the void, constantly coming closer to a state of nonbeing, we are all too often aware of our fragitlity."

"We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality" says Iris Murdoch. But given the state of the world, is it wise?"

"One of the secrets of a happy life is continous small treats."

"True life is lived when tiny changes occur."