Back then, before it became clear that democracy was best served by a drunken electorate, the bars in New York City were required to close on Election Day.

Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.

Stories are like assholes. Everybody's got one and most of 'em stink.

My mother's father was from Sligo, and he used to say it was the hardest thing in the world to find a man alive in Dublin who wasn't in the GPO during the Easter Rising. Twenty brave men marched into that post office, he said, and thirty thousand marched out.

I've always essentially been a New Yorker.

Something I learned long ago. It is not necessary to know what a person is afraid of. It is enough to know the person is afraid.

I’ve tried writing and the sentences come out fine, but I write a few pages and I don’t want to go on.