“Even if I did speak Irish, I’d always be considered an outsider here, wouldn’t I? I may learn the password but the language of the tribe will always elude me, won’t it? The private core will always be ...hermetic, won’t it?”

“It is not the literal past, the 'facts' of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.”

“Yes, it is a rich language, Lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception - a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying to... inevitabilities.”

“To remember everything is a form of madness.”

“Miracles aren't always a grand happening like the kind I learned about in Sunday school. Sometimes they're as small as giving someone a break.”

“I need you so I can't let go Gonna be all that I can be I want you still I always will cause you're the only one for me”

“Humans are different in private than in the presence of others. While the private persona merges into the social persona in varying degrees, the union is never complete. Something is always held back.”