She takes another long haul, lets the smoke settle in her lungs-- she has heard somewhere that cigarettes are good for grief. One long drag and you forget how to cry. The body too busy dealing with the poison.

People think they know the mystery of living in your skin. They don't. There's no one who knows except the person who carts it around her own self.

Stories are there to be told, and each story changes with the telling. Time changes them. Logic changes them. Grammar changes them. History changes them. Each story is shifted side-ways by each day that unfolds. Nothing ends. The only thing that matters, as Faulkner once put it, is the human heart in conflict with itself. At the heart of all this is the possibility, or desire, to create a piece of art that talks to the human instinct for recovery and joy.

She was forever tilted sideways by the notion that pain was inevitable, chance was cruel, and all human ingenuity should go towards the making of a good cup of tea.

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

The real beauty in life is that beauty can sometimes occur.

The Irish are great for their tunes, but all their lovesongs are sad and their warsongs happy.