“Love . . . is like nature, but in reverse; first it fruits, then it flowers, then it seems to wither, then it goes deep, deep down into its burrow, where no one sees it, where it is lost from sight...”

“My friends I tell you this, we are a jolly group but put us in uniform and all that change. In war I dont know who my brother. In war I dont know who my friend. War make everybody savage. Who can s...”

“Writers are always anxious, always on the run--from the telephone, from responsibilities, from the distractions of the world.”

“If the Holy Communion touched my teeth, I thought that was a mortal sin”

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

“If we are taken all together, we might muster some courage, but from the previous evidence it is likely that we will be taken separately.”

“For a moment Carl tried to picture everything in his mind, and then it happened. Somewhere inside of him, where cause and effect were not weighted against each other, and where logic and explanatio...”

“All good writers are thieves. The best get away with a heist.”

“A rain forest springs from the droppings of animals and grows greater than any cultivated garden; likewise, a great mass of literary skill springs from the droppings of writers that cross our minds...”

“In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won't ge...”

“If food is poetry, is not poetry also food?”

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”