I enjoy the research element. There are so many stories from the past that interest me, that I want to learn more about, just as an interested person. And if I'm going to learn, if I'm going to research, it's probably going to lead me to writing a novel.

I was a very quiet child, quite introverted, really. Independent, yes; I didn't need a lot of supervision. Less so than I did when I got older, maybe. But I was a bookish child, not surprisingly. I could sit quite happily in a corner for hours and entertain myself with books.

Bruno: We're not supposed to be friends, you and me. We're meant to be enemies. Did you know that?

(J)ust because your version of normal isn't the same as someone else's version doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you.

I think i'm just breathing, that's all. And there's a difference between breathing and being alive.

I don't buy into the idea that an Irish writer should write about Ireland, or a gay writer should write about being gay. But when I found the right story, I saw it as an opportunity to write about being a teenager and being gay. Most people, whether you're gay or straight or whatever, have experienced that relationship where one person is much more interested than the other.

Just because a man glances up at the sky at night does not make him an astronomer, you know.