Whenever I have tried to do anything For Money it has always led me astray.

I only really love a book when I have read it at least four times.

Everything begins in Paris.

There are people whom one loves immediately and forever. Even to know they are alive in the world with one is quite enough.

I like a new clean book, freshly bound, particularly when I am the first to read it. I like dirty books - where other people have been before me, slipping fried eggs between the pages as markers - rather less.

It is a city of villages, closely connected, each village dedicated to a different way of life.

Ireland is a wonderful place to write in. Even although the atmosphere was so Faith-laden that I was often worried that I was not writing a book to the glory of God, I had to admit that words flowed from my pen like all-get-out. To be honest, there is nothing to do in Ireland but write.