I'd much prefer to write more quickly.

When I start to write, words have become physical presence. It was to see if I could bring that private world to life that found its first expression through reading. I really dislike the romantic notion of the artist.

The imagination demands that life be told slant because of its need of distance.

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

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.

Anything that is given can be at once taken away. We have to learn never to expect anything, and when it comes it's no more than a gift on loan.

We absolutely believed in Heaven and Hell, Purgatory, and even Limbo. I mean, they were actually closer to us than Australia or Canada, that they were real places.