“There's no sense to being Irish unless you know the world's going to break your heart.”

“There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,committed or endured or suspected; there are worse thingsthan not being able to sleep for thinking about them.It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking inand stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.”

“Humans are a part of creation and shamanism is our way of connecting with the whole.”

“It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.-From the poem Fear”

“...to be Irish is to know the world will break your heart before you are thirty.”

“To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.”

“In becoming an Irishman, Patrick wedded his world to theirs, his faith to their life…Patrick found a way of swimming down to the depths of the Irish psyche and warming and transforming Irish imagination – making it more humane and more noble while keeping it Irish.” (161)”