It was the first time that I came face to face with madness and feared it and was fascinated by it.

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.

Self-sufficiency is the enemy of salvation. If you are self-sufficient, you have no need of God. If you have no need of God, you do not seek Him. If you do not seek Him, you will not find Him.

Mankind is nothing but a playground of consciousness.

We are loved if we love, another truth we always seem to forget. ...Loving requires so much courage and so little expectation.

There's a lot more responsibility at home, so a tour is like the opposite for me. It's like a breath of fresh air.

Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.

So many people have so much trouble having kids.

A book begins as a private excitement of the mind.

You might as well go in and start getting dressed. I'm going to hit his first pitch for a home run.

If to the viewer's eyes, my world appears less beautiful than his, I'm to be pitied and the viewer praised.

It's so easy to get caught up in what people expect of you. Sometimes, you can just lose yourself.