“I don't know what it means and I don't care because it's Shakespeare and it's like having jewels in my mouth when I say the words.”

“The master says it's a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it's a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there's anyone in the world who would like us to live. My brothers are dead and my sister is dead and I wonder if they died for Ireland or the Faith. Dad says they were too young to die for anything. Mam says it was disease and starvation and him never having a job. Dad says, Och, Angela, puts on his cap and goes for a long walk”

“I know that big people don't like questions from children. They can ask all the questions they like, How's school? Are you a good boy? Did you say your prayers? but if you ask them did they say their prayers you might be hit on the head.”

“I asked my dad what afflicted meant and he said 'Sickness son, and things that don't fit.”

“But I don't know how I'll ever get a college degree and rise in the world with no high school diploma and eyes like piss holes in the snow, as everyone tells me.”

“Sit and quiet yourself. Luxuriate in a certain memory and the details will come. Let the images flow. You'll be amazed at what will come out on paper. I'm still learning what it is about the past that I want to write. I don't worry about it. It will emerge. It will insist on being told.”

“Andy says, I don't understand how they can give loans to people who want to spend two weeks lying on the sand at the goddam Jersey shore and then turn down a woman with three kids hanging on by her fingernails.”