Death in its way comes just as much of a surprise as birth.

It is increasingly clear that the fate of the universe will come to depend more and more on individuals as the bungling of bureaucracy permeates every corner of our existence.

History is said to be written by the victors. Fiction, by contrast, is largely the work of injured bystanders.

When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.

The vote means nothing to women. We should be armed.

Ordinary life bypassed me, but I also bypassed it. It couldn't have been any other way.Conventional life and conventional people are not for me.

Writing is like carrying a fetus.

never forget this moment, the hum of the bee, the saffron threads of the flower, the drawn blinds, nature's assiduousness and human cruelty.

... a country encapsulates our childhood and those lanes, byres, fields, flowers, insects, suns, moons and stars are forever reoccurring.

Promiscuity is the death of love.

I'm an Irish Catholic and I have a long iceberg of guilt.

Laughter comes from living." I shrug, try to sound indifferent. "I've never really been alive before.

[photography]... wanted to understand, to master for myself, all the processes involved, and to manipulate them in my own way.

I'm not a film star, I am an actress. Being a film star is such a false life, lived for fake values and for publicity.

Man's attitude toward great qualities in others is often the same as toward high mountains - he admires them but he prefers to walk around them.

Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate, Born where Heav'n influence scarce can penetrate. In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like, They please as beauties, here as wonders strike.

I love your silences, they are like mine.

I like Soderbergh, Spielberg, Lucas. There's a lot of talented guys out there obviously, and if you're a fan of films, you have to look at that stuff and learn from them.

If only I had discipline, but alas, it is only an obsessive-compulsive trait and the beauty of habit that causes me to return again and again to my work.

Nothing he said could change what I think of you. I've had my mind made up about you for a long time... and it's all good.

It was a long time in the making, my divorce. One day became less special than the next, and pretty soon, we ceased all conversation. It is a sad day when you have nothing left to say.