You know people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it.

When I'm writing I just think there's only the page and me and nobody else.

When you grow up on an island, what matters is how you stand to the sea.

When I was growing up, the exam system didn't allow you to write fiction, so you never did.

When I was a kid, if you didn't speak Irish, you really wanted to. And you played Gaelic games and you didn't pay any attention to what was happening in the outside world, because really, the - Ireland was the center of the universe. And I don't think that's the case anymore, although, admittedly, it is the center of the universe.

I'm going to sound like an old man but at my age, it's lovely doing something that you've never done before.

Some of the people who look the most normal are probably the maddest people trying to look normal.