The head has its confines. The head’s got those all right, and the heart. The heart has its reasons.

Happy is what you realize you are a fraction of a second before it's too late.

Every great narrative is at least two narratives, if not more - the thing that is on the surface and then the things underneath which are invisible.

Books mean all possibilities. They mean moving out of yourself, losing yourself, dying of thirst and living to your full. They mean everything.

I wouldn't call my work Modernist. I would rust if I try to think about labels. I'd feel like the Tin Man in 'The Wizard of Oz.

To be known so well by someone is an unimaginable gift. But to be imagined so well by someone is even better.

Oh. To be filled with goodness then shattered by goodness, so beautifully mosaically fragmented by such shocking goodness.

Stella Duffy is a writer who never lets you down.

Do you come to art to be comforted, or do you come to art to be re-skinned?

We'd never expect to understand a piece of music on one listen, but we tend to believe we've read a book after reading it just once.

Short stories consume you faster. They're connected to brevity. With the short story, you are up against mortality. I know how tough they are as a form, but they're also a total joy.

I wonder, said the Lord I wonder if I know the answer any more.

You don’t tell a boy that he is a boy. You simply act like a man.

Life is what's happening while you're worrying.

Both humanity's capacity to innovate and the incentives to innovate are greater today than at any other time in history.

My ideas had been taking a socialistic shape for many years; but they were lacking in definite outline.

The particle and the planet are subject to the same laws and what is learned of one will be known of the other.

Although, people make mistakes in their lives, and you could say that the mistakes make us who we are, by how we respond to them. I just don't want to play boring good guys.

There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.

Anything good has a magical power! Say something good; it travels around the world without legs; do something good, it flies around the world without wings! Everything good has a mystical power!

I don't get sick. I can't afford to get sick.