“The raison no wan is afraid iv Death, Hinnessy, is that no wan ra-ally undherstands it.  If anny wan iver come to undherstand it he’d be scared to death.  If they is anny such thing as a cow’rd, which I doubt, he’s a man that comes nearer realizin’ thin other men, how seeryous a matther it is to die.  I talk about it, an’ sometimes I think about it.  But how do I think about it?  It’s me lyin’ there in a fine shoot iv clothes an’ listenin’ to all th’ nice things people are sayin’ about me.  I’m dead, mind ye, but I can hear a whisper in the furthest corner iv th’ room.  Ivry wan is askin’ ivry wan else why did I die.  ’It’s a gr-reat loss to th’ counthry,’ says Hogan.  ‘It is,’ says Donahue.  ’He was a fine man,’ says Clancy.  ‘As honest a man is iver dhrew th’ breath iv life,’ says Schwartzmeister.  ‘I hope he forgives us all th’ harm we attimpted to do him,’ says Donahue.  ’I’d give annything to have him back,’ says Clancy.  ‘He was this and that, th’ life iv th’ party, th’ sowl iv honor, th’ frind iv th’ disthressed, th’ boolwark iv th’ constichoochion, a pathrite, a gintleman, a Christyan an’ a scholard.’  ‘An’ such a roguish way with him,’ says th’ Widow O’Brien.

“That’s what I think, but if I judged fr’m expeeryence I’d know it’d be, ‘It’s a nice day f’r a dhrive to th’ cimitry.  Did he lave much?’ No man is a hayro to his undertaker.”

Hypocrisy

“It must be a good thing to be good or ivrybody wudden’t be pretendin’ he was.  But I don’t think they’se anny such thing as hypocrisy in th’ wurruld.  They can’t be.  If ye’d turn on th’ gas in th’ darkest heart ye’d find it had a good raison for th’ worst things it done, a good varchous raison, like needin’ th’ money or punishin’ th’ wicked or tachin’ people a lesson to be more careful, or protectin’ th’ liberties iv mankind, or needin’ the money.”

History

“I know histhry isn’t thrue, Hinnessy, because it ain’t like what I see ivry day in Halsted Sthreet.  If any wan comes along with a histhry iv Greece or Rome that’ll show me th’ people fightin’, gettin’ dhrunk, makin’ love, gettin’ married, owin’ th’ grocery man an’ bein’ without hard-coal, I’ll believe they was a Greece or Rome, but not befure.  Historyans is like doctors.  They are always lookin’ f’r symptoms.  Those iv them that writes about their own times examines th’ tongue an’ feels th’ pulse an’ makes a wrong dygnosis.  Th’ other kind iv histhry is a post-mortem examination.  It tells ye what a counthry died iv.  But I’d like to know what it lived iv.”

Enjoyment

“I don’t think we injye other people’s sufferin’, Hinnessy.  It isn’t acshally injyement.  But we feel betther f’r it.”

Gratitude

“Wan raison people ar-re not grateful is because they’re proud iv thimsilves an’ they niver feel they get half what they desarve.  Another raison is they know ye’ve had all th’ fun ye’re entitled to whin ye do annything f’r annybody.  A man who expicts gratichood is a usurer, an’ if he’s caught at it he loses th’ loan an’ th’ intherest.”