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

The only way to write a book, I’m fond of telling people, is to actually write a book. That’s how you write a book.

I do wish I could write like some of the American women, who can be clever and heartfelt and hopeful; people like Lorrie Moore and Jennifer Egan. But Ireland messed me up too much, I think, so I can't.

We have lost the art of public tenderness, these small gestures of wiping and washing; we have forgotten how abjectly the body welcomes a formal touch.

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

I became a full-time writer in 1993 and have been very happy, insofar as anybody is, since.

I can't think of anything you might say about Irish people that is absolutely true.