The principle was, death should not be entered like some snug harbor. It should be an unambiguous refusal to surrender.

I thought I'd definitely be a writer, whatever I did.

Thomas was my true name but everyone knew me as Mick, except my mother, who knew me as definitely Michael.

You know, so I was a weird eccentric kid but I did believe in the power of the word and of the word being made flesh I suppose, which again I suppose came from my temperament as well as my upbringing.

It's only when you abandon your ambitions that they become possible.

Australia integrated the - brought on the ships and unleashed in the society the dogs of sectarianism, which had existed in other places - in Glasgow, in Liverpool and of course in Ireland, north and south.

I must apologise because I know all writers have memories of being on the outer because it's the children on the side of the playground who become the dangerous writers.