She likes the people with the endurance to tolerate the drudge, the ones who know that pain is a requirement, not a curse.

He might have been naive, but he didn't care; he said he's rather die with his heart on his sleeve than end up another cynic.

There are moments we return to, now and always. Family is like water - it has a memory of what it once filled, always trying to get back to the original stream.

Part of the beauty of fiction is that we come alive in a body that we don't own.

There are fewer and fewer Jews in Ireland, but we still have one of the most famous Jewish characters in literary history, of course, in Leopold Bloom.

Increasingly I think of myself as some strange and solitary conductor, introduced to a group of very dynamic musicians who happen to be my characters, and I have no idea how they are going to play together, and I have certainly no idea how I am going to put manners on them.

The world does not turn without moments of grace. Who cares how small.