I think the Northern Ireland accent is one of the most beautiful in the world.

A book is completed only when it is finished by a reader.

Whatever you say, say nothing.

You can count the dead, but you can't count the cost. We've got no math for Heaven.

Personally, I like the social novel. I like writing that gets in and under the hood and looks about - at what's going on. But I don't say to any writer that that's absolutely what they should do.

That's what sons do: write to their mothers about recall, tell themselves about the past until they come to realize that they are the past.

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.