We Irish prefer embroideries to plain cloth. To us Irish, memory is a canvas--stretched, primed, and ready for painting on. We love the "story" part ….

Every pain is a lesson..

I believe the world of the spirit is in general greatly neglected and not at all served by the practice of faith as we know it, because religion isn'….

I never met a librarian worth his or her salt who didn't perceive my passion for books..

Marriage is very important. Marrying a girl is the most important thing a man can do. Never mind business or politics or sport or any of that, there'….

There are some places you love with your heart, and there are some places that you love with your mind- the places that you love with both are called….

The difference between a friend and an enemy is friendliness..

Do you know what the difference is between Friendship and Love? Friendship is the photograph, Love is the oil painting..

I'd have to struggle to find a subject in which I can't get some kind of interested pulse started..

When I come out on the road of a morning, when I have had a night's sleep and perhaps a breakfast, and the sun lights a hill on the distance, a hill ….

Writers have opinions - that, in part, is why they write. Therefore they have strong likes and dislikes..

Should; shouldn't; ought; oughtn't—the enemies of contentment..

Marriage is the gold standard of all relationships. It's the currency by which everything is valued..

Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge..

Start with the difficult and when it gets easy, everything else is easier..

Find your soul and you'll live. Lose your soul and you'll die..

For a startling period of my life, I reported the Troubles in Ireland for the BBC. I lived in Dublin and was called out to all sorts of incidents tha….

The human face does not always reflect the beauty that may repose in the soul..

Stick a lighted candle up your backside to give yourself that inner glow..

The one joy that has kept me going through life has been the fact that stories unite us. To see you as you listen to me now, as you have always liste….

As an arts journalist in London, working mainly for the BBC, I interviewed hundreds if not thousands of authors. From them I gleaned a great deal of ….