Irish readers, British readers, American readers: is it odd that I haven't a clue about how differently they react? Or better say, I cannot find the words to describe my hunch about them.

Harvard created wonderful conditions for me as a writerbut the writing was done, almost entirely, when I got home.

I might enjoy being an albatross, being able to glide for days and daydream for hundreds of miles along the thermals. And then being able to hang like an affliction round some people's necks.

As writers and readers, as sinners and citizens, our realism and our aesthetic sense make us wary of crediting the positive note.

Two buckets were easier carried than one. / I grew up in between.

Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.

Hope for a great sea-change timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.