Writers are always anxious, always on the run–from the telephone, from responsibilities, from the distractions of the world.
It is impossible to capture the essence of love in writing, only its symptoms remain, the erotic absorption, the huge disparity between the times together and the times apart, the sense of being excluded.
That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.
Darkness is drawn to light, but light does not know it; light must absorb the darkness and therefore meet its own extinguishment.
I was lonelier than I should be, for a woman in love, or half in love.
When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.
If the Holy Communion touched my teeth, I thought that was a mortal sin
In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things.
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.
In a way winter is the real spring the time when the inner things happen the resurge of nature.
When something has been perfect there is a tendency to try hard to repeat it.