I think fiction is a very serious thing, that while it is fiction, it is also a revelation of truth, or facts.

I read all the time. I was reading a book I admire very much by Alice McDermot called Charming Billy.

Ireland is a peculiar society in the sense that it was a nineteenth century society up to about 1970 and then it almost bypassed the twentieth century.

Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity.

My favorite optimist was an American who jumped off the Empire State Building, and as he passed the 42nd floor, the window washers heard him say, 'So Far, so good.'

I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.

Yes, though I have nothing but gratitude for my upbringing in the church.