Perhaps we are born knowing the tales of our grandmothers and all their ancestral kin continually run in our blood repeating them endlessly, and the shock they give us when we first bear them is not of surprise but of recognition.

You can ask me anything you like about my work, but I'll never talk about myself.

Child and serpent, star and stone — all one.

I was brought up Irish, where there was room for my own private world.

A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns.

Tea is balm for the soul, don't you agree?

What I want to know is this: Are the stars gold paper or is the gold paper stars?