Living lines: Friel's finest dramas

• Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1964)
  "Impermanence -  anonymity -  that's what I'm looking for; a vast restless place
  that doesn't give a damn about the past."
• The Freedom of the City (1973)
  "They died for their beliefs. They died  for their fellow citizens. They died
  because they could endure no longer  the injuries and injustices and indignities that have been their lot for too many years."
• Living Quarters (1977)
  "It doesn't matter if it's true or not -  it's part of the Butler lore."
• Aristocrats (1979)
  "Less than twenty-four hours away from London and already we're reverting to drunken Paddies. Must be the environment, mustn't it?"  
• Faith Healer (1979)
  "Even the people who came to him -  they weren't just sick people who were confused and frightened and wanted to be cured; no, no; to him they were ... yes, they were real enough, but not real as persons, real as fictions, his fictions, extensions of himself, that came into being only because of him."
• Translations (1980)
  "Yes, it is a rich language Lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception -  a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes."
• Dancing at Lughnasa (1990)
  "When I remember it, I think of it as dancing ... Dancing as if language had surrendered to movement - as if this ritual, this wordless ceremony, was now the way to speak, to whisper private and sacred things, to be in touch with some otherness ...Dancing as if language no longer existed because words were no longer  necessary."
• The Home Place (2005)
  "The planter has to be resilient. No home, no country, a life of isolation and resentment."