Time limits tend to turn everything predictable and mundane into a novelty.

She supposed this was the real definition of a mother – a woman who willingly allows her heart to break over and over again for her children.

The benefit of carrying the entire world on your shoulders was that you didn’t have to stare it in the face.

Traveling, she realized, was like a slow dismemberment of the body. It plucked the heart out of her and split it into pieces, leaving a bit behind wherever she went, never to be whole again.

Are guilt and regret not messages from inside of us, letting us know that our moral compasses have been recalibrated and are pointing in the right direction?

Such was the cyclical nature of Galway life: finding tragedy in the simple things and simplicity in the tragic things.

One of the over-riding things for many who grow up in poverty is the simple desire to escape. I think it was sort of obvious to me that escape had to be through education.

When I hear that a man is religious, I conclude he is a rascal!

How sweet to remember the trouble that is past.

There was a strange kind of comfort in misunderstandings and differences that were old enough to have lost their teeth.

May the dreams of your previous be the reality of your potential.

It is more important to know who you are than where you are going, for where you are going will change as the world around you changes.

Is there not glory enough in living the days given to us? You should know there is adventure in simply being among those we love and the things we love, and beauty, too.

Let the young rain of tears come, let the calm hands of grief come. It's not all as evil as you think.

I know that some believe that voluntary prayer in schools should be restricted to a moment of silence. We already have the right to remain silent - we can take our Fifth Amendment.

Good actions are the invisible hinges on the doors of heaven.