Colum McCann

“Her smile could've broken glass.”

— Colum McCann

“An optimist is a braver cynic.”

— Colum McCann

Whatever you say, say nothing.

— Colum McCann

“Nobody falls halfway”

— Colum McCann

“Her smile colud've broen glass.”

— Colum McCann

“Another day, another dolor.”

— Colum McCann

“She studied fluidity.”

— Colum McCann

“Someone was high or brilliant or both.”

— Colum McCann

“They bobbed back and forth, little Halloween apples.”

— Colum McCann

The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.

— Colum McCann

“There was something of the beautiful failure about her.”

— Colum McCann

I think the Northern Ireland accent is one of the most beautiful in the world.

— Colum McCann

“although i know that a wall to happiness is expecting too much happiness”

— Colum McCann

“Once we had filled each other with desire, not remembrance.”

— Colum McCann

Sometimes, in life, nothing happens. But, sometimes, nothing happens beautifully.

— Colum McCann

“They looked ruined and decrepit, the sort of men who'd soon turn into empty chairs.”

— Colum McCann

“There was a quote about "standing in a river too long or long enough" that I can't find now. Anyone remember? If…

— Colum McCann

“The disconnect between his mouth and his mind. That's where the camera came in. It was the unspoken thing between him and…

— Colum McCann

“In another life I would have liked to be a poet, I just can’t stop the lines in time, so I’m a…

— Colum McCann

“A bottle of gin sat in the center of the table. More emptiness than gin in the bottle.”

— Colum McCann

We have to listen to other people's stories. That's the thing. And that's the only way that we eventually get to know…

— Colum McCann

I don't know of a greater privilege than being allowed to tell a story, or to listen to a story. They're the…

— Colum McCann

“Women in long dresses, aloof and elegant, the mark of bonnet ribbons still on the soft of their necks.”

— Colum McCann

“The repeated lies become history, but they don't necessarily become the truth. The person we know at first, [she thinks] is not…

— Colum McCann

“It was one of those moments when everything is out of balance, I suppose, and just watching an odd thing seems to…

— Colum McCann

“At Yale, when he was young and headstrong, he'd been sure that one day he'd be the very axis of the world,…

— Colum McCann

Women get the short shrift in history. It's been largely written and dictated by men, or at least men believe that we…

— Colum McCann

He told me once that there was no better faith than a wounded faith and sometimes I wonder if that is what…

— Colum McCann

“The world is run by brutal men and the surest proof is their armies. If they ask you to stand still, you…

— Colum McCann

“At the end of the letter he said, Fuck you, you heartless bitch, you rolled up my heart and squeezed it dry.…

— Colum McCann

“You're manic-depressive and you're manic-depressive too and you, you're definitely manic-depressive, girl. And you over there in the corner, you're just plain…

— Colum McCann

I know already that I will return to this day whenever I want to. I can bid it alive. Preserve it. There…

— Colum McCann

I told him that I loved him and that I'd always love him and I felt like a child who throws a…

— Colum McCann

He's at ease, his body sculpted to the music, his shoulder searching the other shoulder, his right toe knowing the left knee,…

— Colum McCann

“Most of the customers were from Kerry and Limerick. One was a lawyer, a tall, fat sandy-haired man. He lorded it over…

— Colum McCann

“Bits of it floating in the air, he said. "It's like dust. You walk about and don't see it, don't notice it,…

— Colum McCann

“What happened then was that, for an instant, almost nothing happened. He wasn't even there. Failure didn't even cross his mind. It…

— Colum McCann

“The ticking was gone from my mind and all was quiet everywhere in the world and I held the curtain like I…

— Colum McCann

“...if he fell, well, he fell—but if he survived he would become a monument, not carved in stone or encased in brass,…

— Colum McCann

“The short sharp shock of three thousand mother two hundred mothers. The ones who picked through the supermarket debris for pieces of…

— Colum McCann