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

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.

I used to take five or six books away and bring five or six books back. Nobody gave me direction or advice and I read much in the way that a boy might watch television.

The rosary was said every evening. I always liked that sentence about the medieval Churches, that they were the Bibles of the poor. The Church was my first book and I would think it is still my most important book.

I think my mother was very spiritual.

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.