We live in such constant nearness to the abyss of past time that the moment is endlessly sucked into.

It is a curious fact that the word essayist showed up in English before it existed in French.

There is no ideal length, but you develop a little interior gauge that tells you whether or not you're supporting the house or detracting from it. When a piece gets too long, the tension goes out of it. That word—tension—has an animal insistence for me. A piece of writing rises and falls with tension. The writer holds one end of the rope and the reader holds the other end—is the rope slack, or is it tight? Does it matter to the reader what the next sentence is going to be?

What’s old doesn’t need to be old-fashioned. It gets reborn.

The city of Cork - the urban center, where all the shops and bars and everything are - is actually an island, a river island.

We live in such constant nearness to the abyss of past time that the moment is endlessly sucked into.

Freaky things happen all the time in the world. I suppose everything has to happen for the first time at some point.