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

literature is the last banquet between minds.

There was always a real reason for everything - why spoons tarnished, and jam furred, and people declined into God, or drink, or card games.

Oh, love, what an unreasoning creature it grew to be.

Countries are either mothers or fathers, and engender the emotional bristle secretly reserved for either sire.

For me to write I have to be, a, alone, and b, know that nobody is going to question me. I write the way a thief steals; it's a little covert.

The other me, who did not mean to drown herself, went under the sea and remained there for a long time. Eventually she surfaced near Japan and people gave her gifts but she had been so long under the sea she did not recognize what they were. She is a sly one. Mostly at night we commune. Night. Harbinger of dream and nightmare and bearer of omens which defy the music of words. In the morning the fear of her going is very real and very alarming. It can make one tremble. Not that she cares. She is the muse. I am the messenger.