I feel I grew up in a different century than I live in. I think most of them are changes for the good.

Amongst Women concentrated on the family, and the new book concentrates on a small community. The dominant units in Irish society are the family and the locality. The idea was that the whole world would grow out from that small space.

Nothing ever holds together unless it is mixed with some of one's own blood

...with a rush of feeling he felt that this must be happiness. As soon as the thought came to him, he fought it back, blaming the whiskey. The very idea was as dangerous as presumptive speech: happiness could not be sought or worried into being, or even fully grasped; it should be allowed its own slow pace so that it passes unnoticed, if it ever comes at all.

I mean I think that's a fact and I think that we had a very peculiar type of Catholic Church here in that it was a fortress Church.

I feel I grew up in a different century than I live in. I think most of them are changes for the good.

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