It struck me that distant cities are designed precisely so you can know where you came from.

...it was necessary to love silence, but before you could love silence you had to have noise.

The point of flight. To get rid of oneself. That was reason enough to fly.

The luxury of age was the giving up of vanity.

Literature can remind us that not all life is already written down: there are still so many stories to be told.

Novels are more difficult simply because they are longer and require more juggling, but short stories are closer to perfection, if you can get the language right.

Anakana Schofield is part of a new wave of wonderful Irish fiction-international in scope and electrically alive.