You never know if you're a writer. You can't trust it. If you woke up and said, "I'm a writer," it would be gone. You wouldn't see anything for miles - even the dust would be running away.

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.

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.

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who walk into a room and say ‘Here I am’ and those who walk into a room and say, ‘There you are.

There is help for the helpless, hope for the hopeless, and forgiveness for the inexcusable.

There is no knowledge, no light, no wisdom that you are in possession of, but what you have received it from some source.

I think it’s better to have ideas. You can change an idea; changing a belief is trickier.

No endeavour is in vain; Its reward is in the doing.

The universe is a strange and wondrous place. The truth is quite odd enough to need no help from pseudoscientific charlatans.

I think in the years to come what Reagan will be remembered for is that he had the chance to stop the plague and he chose not to because the 'right people' were dying.

Activity is the enemy of investment returns.

The bigger the trophy, the more trivial the contest.

I wanted to leave Eight Is Enough for the Navy.