Knowing that language has done so much, we want to believe that it can do everything.

If there is a distinctive Irish experience, it is one of division, exacerbated by the fact that division in a country so small seems perverse. But the scale doesn't matter.

The truth of art consists in its power to break the monopoly that those in power exercise by defining what is real.

Through engagement with others, literature lets us imagine what it would be like to be differe.

A critical discourse that had respect for the mystery of art would look to the sense of life which finds expression in paradox, metaphor, tautology, and syntax.

There is no good reason to suppose that whatever can be felt can be expressed in words, or indeed in any articulate form.

Nevertheless, four hours after dawn they began dying for their cause.

I intend to live forever, or die trying.

Nothing good about the sun if you're trying to watch television with out curtains.

History belongs above all to the man...who needs models, teachers, comforters and cannot find them among his contemporaries.

I save money when I'm working so that I never have to take a role simply to pay the bills.

I don't understand how poor people think.

Selfishly I'd like to have invisibility because I've always wanted to go into other people's houses and see what they look like and just watch them interact.

Her singing reminds me of a cart coming downhill with the brake on.

Grains of error planted innocently in a well-kept greenhouse can become giant poisonous trees.

Whenever I see something that looks like it could be good - whether it's on vinyl, CD or cassette - if it's not too expensive, I'll take a chance.