I'd much prefer to write more quickly.

My favorite optimist was an American who jumped off the Empire State Building, and as he passed the 42nd floor, the window washers heard him say, 'So Far, so good.'

When I was in my 20s it did occur to me that there was something perverted about an attitude that thought that killing somebody was a minor offence compared to kissing somebody.

We absolutely believed in Heaven and Hell, Purgatory, and even Limbo. I mean, they were actually closer to us than Australia or Canada, that they were real places.

I belong to the middle class that grew up very influenced by the Catholic church. The people of the novel are from a more pagan and practical world in which the Christianity is just a veneer.

The best of life is life lived quietly, where nothing happens but our calm journey through the day, where change is imperceptible and the precious life is everything.

When you're in danger of losing a thing it becomes precious and when it's around us, it's in tedious abundance and we take it for granted as if we're going to live forever, which we're not.

I read all the time. I was reading a book I admire very much by Alice McDermot called Charming Billy.

Ireland is a peculiar society in the sense that it was a nineteenth century society up to about 1970 and then it almost bypassed the twentieth century.

I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.

Yes, but also one of the problems for a novelist in Ireland is the fact that there are no formal manners. I mean some people have beautiful manners but there's no kind of agreed form of manners.

You Don't need anyone to live a full life, You just need to find yourself!

I am living my dreams.

To stimulate creativity one must develop childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition.

Genes are little items that are found in every living thing except Sen. Alfonse D'Amato.

I am going to bring everybody together.

It is a special part of the divine worship that we owe to God, to be content in a Christian way, as has been shown to you.

[Donald Trump] will be the president of the United States.

All riddles are blues, / And all blues are sad, / And I'm only mentioning / Some blues I've had.

My grandfather always told me that it is no good lying on a hospital bed saying, 'I had the right of way', ... That's one of the reasons I was so pleased that the boys could do the IAM test as well.

I was raised in the Baptist church... but I didn't really have a real committed experience with Christ until my father died.