"I always say that a man with one language is like a man with one eye."

"They are angry men with vision, Brother, and by God their anger is justified. Ireland has not much longer to suffer. …"

"There's not much money - if that's what you mean." "Approximately." "Once all the debts are paid there will be very l…"

"What we run here, Brother, is a finishing school for the sons of the Idle Poor." "It finishes them all right."

""Bitter?" said the barmaid and he nodded. What a strange thing to call a drink. Bitter. Aloes. Sorrow. For something …"

"Michael wondered why it was the tragic things that remained with him most vividly."

"When they had come recruiting to his school - 'for fishers of men' - all those years ago and had offered the glitteri…"

"He no longer believed in any of it. Faith was a bit like luck. Spiritual luck. By the end of his novitiate it had beg…"

"A bird's-eye view does not see the truth."

"When she met men the first things she took account of were the negative things. Wimpishness, a bully, shiftiness, rec…"