“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...”

“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.”

“Fiction should be in its way subversive. I don't think books should be neat or gentle or genteel or comforting. I think they should be raw. They should be written as perfectly as possible, but what...”

“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.”

“I have given my word that only death will take me from you.”

“If we stood close to each other, side by side, as true brothers and sisters, then evil would not know how to stand between us.”

“Yet even in the loneliness of the canyon I knew there were others like me who had brothers they did not understand but wanted to help. We are probably those referred to as "our brother's keepers," ...”

“War is what happens when language fails.”

“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

“The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.”