Anything that is given can be at once taken away. We have to learn never to expect anything, and when it comes it's no more than a gift on loan.

My favorite optimist was an American who jumped off the Empire State Building, and as he passed the 42nd floor, the window washers heard him say, 'So Far, so good.'

When I was in my 20s it did occur to me that there was something perverted about an attitude that thought that killing somebody was a minor offence compared to kissing somebody.

We absolutely believed in Heaven and Hell, Purgatory, and even Limbo. I mean, they were actually closer to us than Australia or Canada, that they were real places.

I belong to the middle class that grew up very influenced by the Catholic church. The people of the novel are from a more pagan and practical world in which the Christianity is just a veneer.

The best of life is life lived quietly, where nothing happens but our calm journey through the day, where change is imperceptible and the precious life is everything.

When you're in danger of losing a thing it becomes precious and when it's around us, it's in tedious abundance and we take it for granted as if we're going to live forever, which we're not.

I read all the time. I was reading a book I admire very much by Alice McDermot called Charming Billy.

Ireland is a peculiar society in the sense that it was a nineteenth century society up to about 1970 and then it almost bypassed the twentieth century.

I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.

Yes, but also one of the problems for a novelist in Ireland is the fact that there are no formal manners. I mean some people have beautiful manners but there's no kind of agreed form of manners.

An evil mind will always live with the ghosts of its decisions and actions.

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

Could we forbear dispute, and practise love, We should agree as angels do above.

I actually love fish and vegetables. I was raised on vegetables! Anything green - spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts - I crave.

Before you leave the house, you need to make up your mind that you’re going to stay positive and enjoy the day no matter what comes your way. You have to decide ahead of time.

Over emphatic negatives always suggest that what is being denied may be what is really being asserted.

Energy, energy? Energy is, is, it's nothing more than a lot of new age hokum masquerading as religion.

The Bassbone works great in the studio or on the live stage. Throw it in your gig bag and take it wherever you go.

There's always another story. There's more than meets the eye.

Only the stupid and the phlegmatic should teach.