When you find yourself alone, or in a transition, you dream more. These are also the times when you read books.
I can't think of anything you might say about Irish people that is absolutely true.
It is very hard to trace the effect of words on a life.
I am a trembling mess from hip to knee. There is a terrible heat, a looseness in my innards that makes me want to dig my fists between my thighs. It is a confusing feeling - somewhere between diarrhoea and sex - this grief that is almost genital.
I was raised in a very old fashioned Ireland where women were reared to be lovely.
If your life just falls apart early on, you can put it together again. Its the people who are always on the brink of crisis who dont hit bottom who are in trouble.