The Rosary Was Said Every Evening. I

I've Never Written Anything That Hasn't Been In My Mind For A Long Time - Seven Or Eight Years.

...with A Rush Of Feeling He Felt That This Must Be Happiness. As Soon As The Thought Came To Him, He Fought It Back, Blaming The Whiskey. The Very Idea Was As Dangerous As Presumptive Speech: Happiness Could Not Be Sought Or Worried Into Being, Or Even Fully Grasped; It Should Be Allowed Its Own Slow Pace So That It Passes Unnoticed, If It Ever Comes At All.

The Way I See It Is That All The Ol' Guff About Being Irish Is A Kind Of Nonsense. I Mean, I Couldn't Be Anything Else No Matter What I Tried To Be. I Couldn't Be Chinese Or Japanese.

Among Its Many Other Obligations, Fiction Always Has To Be Believable. Life Does Not Have To Suffer Such Constraint, And Much Of What Takes Place Is Believable Only Because It Happens.

When I Was In My 20s It Did Occur To Me That There Was Something Perverted About An Attitude That Thought That Killing Somebody Was A Minor Offence Compared To Kissing Somebody.