We all leave one another. We die, we change - it's mostly change - we outgrow our best friends; but even if I do leave you, I will have passed on to you something of myself; you will be a different person because of knowing me; it's inescapable.

When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.

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.

jealousy is the direct result of self-betrayal.

I'm a tuning fork, tense and twanging all the time.

I did not sleep. I never do when I am over-happy, over-unhappy, or in bed with a strange man.

History is said to be written by the victors. Fiction, by contrast, is largely the work of injured bystanders.