It did not seem to me that prejudice, poverty, discrimination, repression and racism were confined to the North of Ireland. I could see them everywhere I spoke and still cannot comprehend the mentality that argues that I should have pretended not to see them, because it wasn't my business.

My function in life is not to be a politician in Parliament: it is to get something done.

Irish Catholics are more interested in the rosary beads than in the rosary.

The Irish aren't great singers, but they have great songs.

But I make a distinction between the doctrines of the Church, which matter, and the structure invented by half a dozen Italians who got to be pope and which is of very little use to anybody.

To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else

... in Northern Ireland, if you don't have basic Christianity, rather than merely religion, all you get out of the experience of living is bitterness.