If there is a distinctive Irish experience, it is one of division, exacerbated by the fact that division in a country so small seems perverse. But the scale doesn't matter.

The truth of art consists in its power to break the monopoly that those in power exercise by defining what is real.

Knowing that language has done so much, we want to believe that it can do everything.

Through engagement with others, literature lets us imagine what it would be like to be differe.

A critical discourse that had respect for the mystery of art would look to the sense of life which finds expression in paradox, metaphor, tautology, and syntax.

There is no good reason to suppose that whatever can be felt can be expressed in words, or indeed in any articulate form.

If after hearing my songs just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend or perhaps to strike a loved one it will all have been worth the while.

Today's temporary disappointment means tomorrows permanent appointment.

The mind can fool the heart, as the heart can fool the mind.

A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still.

It would be a miracle, for example, if I dropped a stone and it rose upwards. But is it no miracle that it falls to the ground?

In This Body Mystery, even though it was written in the voice of people with HIV/AIDS, it's about how people come to accept their fate and their sickness. It's about accepting the way your life is.

Pain is a part of growing-up. It is how we learn.

Governance allows organizations to...achieve unprecedented automation.

In our society, to be obsessed with a vision about how to make a better automobile makes you a genius, but to be obsessed with a vision about the nature of reality makes you a nut.

O, what damned minutes tells he o'er Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet fondly loves!