In every question and every remark tossed back and forth between lovers who have not played out the last fugue, there is one question and it is this: Is there someone new?

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.

A beautiful gift does not decrease in value because it is wrapped in ugly paper.

An impatient person plays differently than a more patient person.

The theater is a weapon, and it is the people who should wield it.

Love is always saying you're sorry.

I call myself a Possibilian: I'm open to...ideas that we don't have any way of testing right now.

I could read at a very early age and I loved stories, losing myself in stories, novels.

Man is born for deeds of kindness.

The bold may not live long, but the timid never live at all.

In relations with other nations, there is neither right nor wrong; there is only strength and weakness.

We should stop calling ourselves environmentalists - and just call ourselves patriots.