I think my mother was very spiritual.

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.

They alone live, who live for others.

Readers can surprise you. Many times, they notice layers in your stories, that even you were not aware of while writing.

You can never see my tears behind my anger and smile. The only thing you can see is my respect for you, because you deserve for it....

They say the brain never ages it’s a shame it can't teach the body that trick.

I want to open myself, let him inside. But how do I give what has already been taken?

Why is comedy the only form of the arts where people think they have to agree with or approve the content? You don't walk through a museum with a towel and throw it over paintings you don't like.

History: the category of human phenomena which tends to catastrophe.

The world is in need of an encompassing and of course, just and humane order in the light of which the rights of all are preserved and peace and security are safeguarded.

The one you can get mad at only for a short period because you have important stuff to tell them.

You don't feel honest on a date, I guess. You don't really get to learn about anyone. You're kind of being polite and you can ask the questions, it's just not a great time for me.