Our destiny can be examined, but it cannot be justified or totally explained. We are simply here.

A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.

A middling talent makes for a more serene life.

How rarely can happiness be really innocent and not triumphant, not an insult to the deprived.

It was like hunting fish with an underwater gun, a sport which he had once been foolish enough to try. At one moment there is the fish - graceful, mysterious, desirable and free - and the next moment there is nothing but struggling and blood and confusion.

That's how vile i am! I live Ireland, I breathe Ireland, and Christ how I loathe it, I wish I were a bloody Scot, that's how bloody awful it is being Irish!

Marriage isn't a tram. It doesn't have to get anywhere.