At GQ, there was never a temptation to pander or preach to the choir because I had no concept of who the reader was or what that reader might want.

I think empathy is a guy who punches you in the face at a bus station, and you're somehow able to look at that him and know enough about what situation he was in to know that he had to do that and not to hit back. That's empathy, and nothing ever happens in writing that has that kind of moral heroism about it.

Reporting provides reminders that things are always more complicated than you think.

This is why you can never reason true Christians out of the faith. It's not, as the adage has it, because they were never reasoned into it - many were - it's that faith is a logical door which locks behind you. What looks like a line of thought is steadily warping.

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

At GQ, there was never a temptation to pander or preach to the choir because I had no concept of who the reader was or what that reader might want.

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