There Are Men Who Would

There Are So Few People Given Us To Love. I Want To Tell My Daughters This, That Each Time You Fall In Love It Is Important, Even At Nineteen. Especially At Nineteen. And If You Can, At Nineteen, Count The People You Love On One Hand, You Will Not, At Forty, Have Run Out Of Fingers On The Other. There Are So Few People Given Us To Love And They All Stick.

I Have No Place Left To Live But In My Own Heart.

I'm Very Keenly Aware That There Aren't Very Many Women Writing Literary Fiction In Ireland And So That Gives Me A Sense That What I Say Matters, In Some Small Way.

And, In Fact, This Is The Tale That I Would Love To Write: History Is Such A Romantic Place, With Its Jarveys And Urchins And Side-buttoned Boots. If It Would Just Stay Still, I Think, And Settle Down. If It Would Just Stop Sliding Around In My Head.

There Are Little Thoughts In Your Head That Can Grow Until They Eat Your Entire Mind. Just Tiny Little Thoughts--they Are Like A Cancer, There Is No Telling What Triggers The Spread, Or Who Will Be Struck, And Why Some Get It And Others Are Spared.