“Malone: Me father died of starvation in Ireland in the black 47. Maybe you've heard of it.Violet: The Famine?Malone: No, the starvation. When a country is full o food, and exporting it, there can be no famine.”

“True the greater part of the Irish people was close to starvation. The numbers of weakened people dying from disease were rising. So few potatoes had been planted that, even if they escaped bight, they would not be enough to feed the poor folk who relied upon them. More and more of those small tenants and cottagers, besides, were being forced off the land and into a condition of helpless destitution. Ireland, that is to say, was a country utterly prostrated. Yet the Famine came to an end. And how was this wonderful thing accomplished? Why, in the simplest way imaginable. The famine was legislated out of existence. It had to be. The Whigs were facing a General Election.”

“Feast or famine. My plate is suddenly full.”

“Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion.”

“You can't brace yourself for famine if you've never known hunger.”

“In famine, a focus on women and children highlights biology: here is a mother who cannot feed her child, a breakdown in the natural order of life. This focus obscures who and what is to blame for the famine, politically and economically, and can lead to the belief that a biological response, more food, will solve the problem.”