I can't go back. The past won't go away in this family.

I appealed to my mother. I told her it wasn't fair the way the whole family was invading my dreams and she said, Arrah, for the love o' God, drink your tea and go to school and stop tormenting us with your dreams.

And, of course, they've always condemned dancing. You know, you might touch a member of the opposite sex. And you might get excited and you might do something natural.

They can afford to smile because they all have teeth so dazzling if they dropped them in the snow they'd be lost forever.

There's so much absurdity. Poverty is so absurd.

The English wouldn't give you the steam of their piss.

My childhood here... was very limited. So it was a long, long time before I actually went out to Brooklyn.