Short stories consume you faster. They're connected to brevity. With the short story, you are up against mortality. I know how tough they are as a form, but they're also a total joy.

Happy is what you realize you are a fraction of a second before it's too late.

Every great narrative is at least two narratives, if not more - the thing that is on the surface and then the things underneath which are invisible.

Books mean all possibilities. They mean moving out of yourself, losing yourself, dying of thirst and living to your full. They mean everything.

I wouldn't call my work Modernist. I would rust if I try to think about labels. I'd feel like the Tin Man in 'The Wizard of Oz.

To be known so well by someone is an unimaginable gift. But to be imagined so well by someone is even better.

Oh. To be filled with goodness then shattered by goodness, so beautifully mosaically fragmented by such shocking goodness.

Stella Duffy is a writer who never lets you down.

Do you come to art to be comforted, or do you come to art to be re-skinned?

We'd never expect to understand a piece of music on one listen, but we tend to believe we've read a book after reading it just once.

A good argument, like a good dialogue, is always a proof of life, but I'd much rather go and read a book.

Love the people who treat you right pray or the people who don't

I don't care if you get up in the morning and don't wash, don't put any make-up on, don't do your hair, even, but you have to have clothes if you want to look different.

Brave deeds are wasted when hidden.

The repetition of small efforts will accomplish more than the occasional use of great talents.

Part of freedom is the right of each of us to go to hell in his own fashion.

I think there's this idea that lipstick is something quite old or something you'd only wear at night.

A man of personality can formulate ideals, but only a man of character can achieve them.

Behind the scenes there is a secretive, undeclared war of revenge that's already under way.

Comandante Fidel Castro is the greatest revolutionary of the 20th Century, bar none.

Life's too short to drink crappy coffee and cry over boys who don't care.