I am teaching. Storytelling is teaching

Where did I get the nerve to think I could handle American teenagers? Ignorance. That's where I got the nerve.

I'm not one of those James Joyce intellectuals who can stand back and look at the whole edifice... It was a slow process for me to just crawl out of it, like a snake leaving his skin behind.

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.

It’s lovely to know that the world can’t interfere with the inside of your head.

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.