Sebastian Barry

“And whatever my life had been up to that day, it was another life after that. And that is the gospel truth.”

“Trench dirt didn't always wash out, I am sure.”

“The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to say. He forgot to say, with every death it ends. Or did not think he needed to. Because for a goodly part of his life he worked in a graveyard.”

“Memory, I must suppose, if it is neglected becomes like a box room, or a lumber room in an old house, the contents jumbled about, maybe not only from neglect but also from too much haphazard searching in them, and things to boot thrown in that don't belong there.”

“Roseanne, Roseanne, if I called to you now, my own self calling to my own self, would you hear me? And if you could hear me, would you heed me?”

“I guess love laughs at history a little.”

“There are some sufferings that we seem as a creature to forget, or we would never survive as a creature among all the other creatures.”

“If it had been a great necessity, if it had been contingents of an army meeting to overwhelm the enemy by stealth, it might not have worked out so neatly. But fate it would seem is a perfect strategist and will work miracles of timing to assist our destruction.”

“Four men killed that day. The phrase sat up in Willie's head like a rat and made a nest for itself there”