Acting doesn't have to be threadbare misery all the time.

Even when they have nothing, the Irish emit a kind of happiness, a joy.

There once was a demographic survey done to determine if money was connected to happiness and Ireland was the only place where this did not turn out to be true.

And by endlessly sanitizing our feelings, we actually feed a disgruntled nation.

The energy released by it is enormous and it becomes quite addictive, the power between the audience and the actor.

The Americans are very clear, and obsessed with nouns.

I would love to write the story of my upbringing in Ireland.

I certainly had no intention of playing a man.

I find it incredibly tedious, hate that it murders itself with its own conservative pomposity.

Once you've done one style, you leave it for a while.

People who are good at film have a relationship with the camera.

People are often frightened of Parisians, but an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than another American.

Poetry is the beauty of life.

The secret was such an old one now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not tear it away.

Somehow you drift along on the river, and one day you wake up and you’re someplace you don’t want to be, with someone you realize you don’t know.

Eventually I'd love to be able to direct.

Hell, I'm not saying I'm an angel, but when it came to dirty tricks I couldn't hold a candle to the Irish Mafia.

Care must be taken that the punishment does not exceed the offence.

As there begins to be less time ahead of you, you want to be exactly who you are, without making it easier for everyone else.

I'd always dabbled in acting.

Show me a man who makes no mistakes, and I will show you a man who doesn't do things.