“When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.”

“Money talks, but tell me why all it says is just Goodbye.”

“That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.”

“In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things.”

“There was I, devouring books and yet allowing a man who had never read a book to walk me home for a bit of harmless fumbling on the front steps.”

“We all leave one another. We die, we change - it's mostly change - we outgrow our best friends; but even if I do leave you, I will have passed on to you something of myself; you will be a different person because of knowing me; it's inescapable...”

“The words ran away with me.”