“Monte Cristo, produced as seriously as it used to be, will be amusing enough to a modern audience without any pointing for laughs. And, played seriously, it should also have an historic interest for the student of Americana, as the most successful romantic melodrama of its time, and one of the most successful plays of all time in America. For over twenty years my father took it all over this country, to big cities and small towns, in a period when nearly every place on the map had a theatre. The same people came to see it again and again, year after year. This is hard to believe, when you read the script now, even considering the period. The answer, of course, was my father. He had a genuine romantic Irish personality—looks, voice, and stage presence—and he loved the part. It was the picturesque vitality of his acting which carried the play. Audiences came to see James O’Neill in Monte Cristo, not Monte Cristo.”
     —Letter to Ohio University drama professor Robert G. Dawes on his father playing in The Count of Monte Cristo (6/3/1940)

“Ever since the Nazi blitzkrieg started I had sunk deeper and deeper into a profound pessimistic lethargy…The battle of Britain I can take more philosophically. Of course, if Ireland is invaded, I shall probably volunteer at once—or might if I was sure the great majority there wouldn’t welcome the Nazis with howls of joy! Remembering the Black and Tan atrocities committed by the British not so many years ago, it would hardly be surprising. One might even call it justice.”
     —Letter to Eugene O’Neill, Jr. (7/14/1940)

“You are right. The appeal to President De Valera is not easy to sign. I have fought it out with myself and I find I cannot sign it. My final conviction is that we Irish Americans owe it to the Irish people not to attempt to influence their decision by any means whatsoever. It is they who will be massacred by German bombers if they commit this act of war. If we could promise our country would fight as an ally of Ireland and defend her independence we might have a right to make this appeal, but as things are I feel we have no right…I hope you can believe that it is also hard for me not to sign this appeal. I appreciate the points you make. I agree with most of them. No dead hand from the past bothers me, although I was reared with a hymn of hate for England the predominant lullaby. It is simply a matter of conscience.”
     —Letter to William Agar of Fight for Freedom, Inc, on his desire for O’Neill to appeal to the Irish to join the allies during World War II (2/5/1941)