I tend to plan as I write. And I want to leave myself open and the character open to keep on going until it seems to be the time to stop.

If there is a heaven, Jane Austen is sitting in a small room with Mother Teresa and Princess Diana, listening to Duran Duran, forever. If there's a hell, she's standing.

I'm not recognised that much. I'm just a bald man in glasses and there's a rash of them in Dublin. It'd be different if I had a mohican.

You know people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it.

It's a big con job. We have sold the myth of Dublin as a sexy place incredibly well; because it is a dreary little dump most of the time.

I see people in terms of dialogue and I believe that people are their talk.

Some of the people who look the most normal are probably the maddest people trying to look normal.

Good ideas are often murdered by better ones.

When I'm writing I just think there's only the page and me and nobody else.

If you are a writer you're at home, which means you're out of touch. You have to make excuses to get out there and look at how the world is changing.

It's great meeting children because you never know what they will say.

There is no pleasure in Jalebi (dessert)

He who curbs his desires will always be rich enough.

There is a ghost That eats handkerchiefs It keeps you company On all your travels.

Romance is a different word than sexual contact.

No scene is ever about the words being spoken.

If your dog should be dead, I'm gonna love you instead.

Twenty years and $40 billion. They seem like good round numbers.

Did evangelical Christians mistake Donald Trump's hairpiece for a halo, while ignoring the obvious signs that he worships Mammon?

The heart is its own Fate.

Art is what we do when we're truly alive.