As you know, I don't believe in fear, just an invention by men so they get all the money and good jobs.

... I am more of an ambler. I once overheard my old boss in Dublin describe me as very "hello trees, hello flowers." It was intended as an insult and it fulfilled its brief; I was insulted. I had little interest in greeting trees and flowers but nor did I treat life as a treadmill, on which it was vital to keep fleeing forward in order to avoid being sucked off the back and out of the game.

It was only when the salt water of my tears ran into my cuts and made them sting that I discovered I was crying.

Medically speaking, there is no such thing as a nervous breakdown. Which is very annoying to discover when you're right in the middle of one.

No more humiliation for me, thanks very much. No more swallowing my anger. Honestly, I couldn't manage another mouthful. But it was delicious. Did you make it yourself?

I am prone to despair. We are all born with a particular personality. I get afraid and then I don't want to leave the house.

I'm trying..." How could I put it? "I'm trying to get far enough down the line so that I can remember." I stopped, then continued: "so that I can remember without the pain killing me" And the days were stacking up. And weeks. And months. It was now almost the middle of June and he'd died in February, but I still felt like I'd just woken from a horrible dream, that I was suspended in that stunned, paralyzed state between sleep and reality where I was grasping for, but couldn't get a handle on normality.