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 find being Irish quite a wearing thing. It takes so much work because it is a social construction. People think you are going to be this, this, and this.

I have no place left to live but in my own heart.

I think you know everything at eight. But is is hidden from you, sealed up, in a way you have to cut yourself open to find.

Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.

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