I don't know what it means and I don't care because it's Shakespeare and it's like having jewels in my mouth when I say the words.

I think I settled on the title before I ever wrote the book.

I don't believe in happiness anyway... it's too much of an American pastime, this search for happiness. Just forget happiness and enjoy your misery.

Before the famine, which was in the 1840s, that was an emotional turning point... There are various documents showing how the Elizabethan English, in particular, were shocked by Irish displays of affection, by the way women acted toward strangers, walking up and putting their arms around them and kissing them right full on the mouth.

We never really had any kind of a Christmas. This is one part where my memory fails me completely.

I don't absolve my father completely of his responsibility for what he did to us I feel compassion, maybe. He had his demons. But I still can't understand how a man can walk away from children. And leave them to starve, as we nearly did, if it wasn't for my mother going out and begging.

Keep scribbling! Something will happen.