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" I didn't have to struggle at all to get an agent and a publisher. Everything fell into my lap. "

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" He came to the States in 1963, I think with a view to making up with my mother, but that didn't work. He came for three weeks, and drank his way all over Brooklyn. And went back... I went to his funeral in Belfast. "

" Happiness is hard to recall. Its just a glow. "

" I couldn't fit in the Irish community in New York. I was never one of the boys because they would talk about baseball or basketball, and I knew nothing about it. "

" They tell me I'm on 'Politically Incorrect' with Ollie North. That should be a lot of fun. "

" People want real-life stories. "

" My dream was to have a Library of Congress catalogue number, that's all. "

" I had moments with my father that were exquisite - the stories he told me about Cuchulain, the mythological Irish warrior, are still magical to me. "

" I can do no more than tell the truth. "

" On the last day of my teaching career, I was sitting in my apartment, having a glass of wine, thinking I'm glad I did it, that I had been somehow useful, that I had learned something. "

" The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. "

Happy Childhood

" If somebody wants me to speak in, say, Chicago, a limousine picks me up at the door to brings me to the airport. I fly at the front of the plane, and a limousine meets me at the other end to take me to a grand hotel, and usually an envelope is left for me with a per diem, maybe $150-a-day walking around money, and then I go home. "

" I couldn't even pick up the newspaper without saying, 'This is a fine piece of writing. I wish to hell I could write like this.' "

" I just have to proceed as usual. No matter what happens, nothing helps with the writing of the next book. "

" I think that's why you see so many Americans in Dublin look so sad: they are looking for the door through which they can begin to understand this place. I tell them, 'Go to the races.' I think it's the best place to start understanding the Irish. "

" I can't go too much into my domestic life because there are ex-wives ready to do me in. "

" We don't look at teachers as scholars the way they do in Europe. In Spain you're called a professor if you're a high school teacher, and they pay teachers - they pay teachers in Europe. "

" When I was a kid, I was a pretty good runner, and there was nothing like winning a race. "

" St. Patrick, bringing the religion to Ireland, this is what we should celebrate. "

" I wanted to avoid all that literary stuff. I didn't want the self pity of 'The Portrait,' all the moaning and the whingeing. I'm not knocking Joyce: we all owe him a debt. He's the one who made so much possible. "

" I didn't know you could write about yourself. Nobody ever told me about this. "

" Every life is a mystery. There is nobody whose life is normal and boring. "

" I don't see myself as either Irish or American, I'm a New Yorker. "

" You're beginning to hear the tale of the common man and woman rather than the traditional memoir about the generals who just finished the war or the politicians who just rendered glorious service to the country. "

" Scatter my ashes on the Shannon. "

" I'm more interested in writing than in performing. "

" I never expected to write a book about a slum in Ireland that was going to catapult me, as they say, into some kind of - onto the best seller list. "

" I think there's something about the Irish experience - that we had to have a sense of humor or die. "

" I just wrote the book and was amazed and astounded that it became a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize. It still hasn't sunk in. "

" You sail into the harbor, and Staten Island is on your left, and then you see the Statue of Liberty. This is what everyone in the world has dreams of when they think about New York. And I thought, 'My God, I'm in Heaven. I'll be dancing down Fifth Avenue like Fred Astaire with Ginger Rogers.' "

" I think I settled on the title before I ever wrote the book. "