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.

Yet she likes complications. She wishes she could turn and say: I like people who unbalance me.

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

I sit there thinking about how much courage it takes to live an ordinary life.

I gave them all the truth and none of the honesty.

Life must pass through difficulty in order to achieve any modicum of beauty.

I'm a complete and utter fiction. Then again, we all are.