James Joyce wrote the definitive work about Dublin while he was living in Switzerland. We're all where we come from. We all have our roots.

I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it extremely comforting that we're so close. I also find it like Chinese water torture, that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection... I am bound, you are bound, to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people.

We live in a world where amnesia is the most wished-for state. When did history become a bad word?

You cannot write to resonate twenty or thirty or forty years from now. You only can write for that very day, but whatever happens is all gravy.

Show business offers more solid promises than Catholicism.

I wanted to be a Bride of Christ but I guess now I'm a young divorcee.

The only riots were the people trying to get tickets.