If you grow up in Ireland and read books then you really are obliged to attempt your own some time. It is not exactly a choice. I still don't know if I am a writer. Believe me, there are days when I have my doubts.

I do not believe in evil- I believe that we are human and fallible, that we things and spoil them in an ordinary way.

For 10 or 11 years, I had my kids, I wrote four or five books, and I was working all the damn time.

I write anywhere - when I have an idea it’s hard not to write. I used to be kind of precious about where I wrote. Everything had to be quiet and I couldn’t be disturbed, it really filled my day.

In more static societies, like Ireland, you can tell where a person is from by their surname, or where their grandparents are from.

Nothing had happened yet in my life except the need to get out of it.

Having kids is very difficult to do on your own, and it's really crazy difficult to think you're doing it as a team and to find out that you're not actually part of a team.