I've been very lucky and I have a happy old age with good family and friends still around.

If you write what you know about, you will always be on safe ground. I am very edgy and nervous about going into territories I know nothing about. That's why you don't find much high finance, group sex, or yachting parties in my stories.

My brother married young, and his is the best marriage I know.

Nobody is ordinary if you know where to look.

I'm getting better, happier, and nicer as I grow older, so I would be terrific in a couple of hundred years time.

In Ireland every place you visit and every person you meet has a story. And they love to tell you their stories. Everyone is interested in everything; in a land of storytellers, you will never be bored.

If you don't go to a dance you can never be rejected but you'll never get to dance either.