All my life I had feared imprisonment, the nun's cell, the hospital bed, the places where one faced the self without distraction, without the crutches of other people.

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.

Darkness is drawn to light, but light does not know it; light must absorb the darkness and therefore meet its own extinguishment.

Recollection is not something that I can summon up, it simply comes and I am the servant of it.

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

... a country encapsulates our childhood and those lanes, byres, fields, flowers, insects, suns, moons and stars are forever reoccurring.

We hide the truer part of ourselves when we love.