"We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling."
"A truly extraordinary work: vivid, passionate and utterly compelling. The Sound of One Hand Clapping is raw as a wound. It opens a world that is strange, brutal and poetic at once and ultimately achieves the kind of spirit-healing few novels do"
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Source: Niall Williams, Christine Breen (1989). “O Come Ye Back to Ireland: Our First Year in County Clare”, Soho PressInc
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"All writers are waiting for replies. That’s what I’ve learned. Maybe all human beings are"
"It was as if we were at the heart of a maze. We were overwhelmed by the enormity of the tasks ahead. Mary had given us a bottle of milk and a spoonful of loose tea, and so, unable to decide what to do, we did what all Irish men and women do: we had tea. Suddenly the sun appeared and not for the first or last time we felt it uplifting us and changing everything. It seemed like a holiday."
"There are only three great puzzles in the world, the puzzle of love, the puzzle of death, and, between each of these and part of both of them, the puzzle of God. God is the greatest puzzle of all."
"When my father first took me to Ennis Library I went down among the shelves and felt company, not only the company of writers, but the readers too, because they had lifted and opened and read these books. The books were worn in a way they can only get worn by hands and eyes and minds"
"When you’re different you’ve got two choices. You can stand out or you step back."