After a full belly all is poetry.

When I act tough they listen politely till the spasm passes. They know.

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

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

People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying school masters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years. Above all -- we were wet.

Your mind is a treasure house that you should stock well and it's the one part of you the world can't interfere with.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it's been a minute since my last confession.