I think everybody has a secret life.

Nat Parson says it's the devil's mark." "Nat Parson's a gobshite." Maddy was torn between a natural feeling of sacrilege and a deep admiration of anyone who dared call a parson 'gobshite.

Life is what you celebrate. All of it. Even its end.

You don't write because someone sets assignments! You write because you need to write, or because you hope someone will listen or because writing will mend something broken inside you or bring something back to life.

That wind. I see it's blowing now. Furtive but commanding, it has dictated every move we've ever made. My mother felt it, and so do I - even here, even now - as it sweeps us like leaves into his backseat corner, dancing us to shreds against the stones. V'la l'bon vent, v'a l'joli vent. I though we'd silenced it for good. But the smallest thing can wake the wind@ a word, a sign, even a death. There's no such thing as a trivial thing. Everything costs; it all adds up until finally the balance shifts and we're gone again, back on the road, telling ourselves - well maybe next time

I'm insatiably curious.

Some people spend the whole of their lives sitting waiting for one train, only to find that they never even made it to the station.