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.

I have never been able to wear a hat. My hair is peculiar in that it grows so fast that any hat I put on instantly leaps from my head.

Only a fool would make the bed every day.

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

In love' is for the romantic. 'Love' for the realist.

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.