You feel a sense of urgency, especially at my advanced age, when you're staring into the grave.

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

I've been writing in notebooks for 40 years or so.

There were positive things about the church, that is, in the European cultural sense, the architecture, the liturgy, the music, the art, such as it was, the stations of the cross in the church, the tradition, and the atmosphere of awe and mystery in the mass. The atmosphere of miracle, one of mainly mystery, that's what fascinates me.

Happiness is hard to recall. Its just a glow.

When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

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.