Love . . . is like nature, but in reverse; first it fruits, then it flowers, then it seems to wither, then it goes deep, deep down into its burrow, where no one sees it, where it is lost from sight, and ultimately people die with that secret buried inside their souls.

That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.

Irish Catholicism is very much founded on the stone of fear and of punishment.

What matters is the imaginative truth.

Wherever there were horses or ponies the mushrooms always sprang up.

Money talks, but tell me why all it says is just Goodbye.

You have to be lonely to be a writer