“They entered the wild country. Broken fences. Ruined castles. Stretches of bogland. Wooded headlands. Turfsmoke rose from cabins, thin and mean. On… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
“The Irish were poor, but not enslaved. He had come here to hack away at the ropes that held American slavery in… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
I think the Northern Ireland accent is one of the most beautiful in the world. — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
“The children looked like remnants of themselves. Spectral. Some were naked to the waist.Many of them had sores on their faces. None… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
“The smell of the earth, so astoundingly fresh: it strikes Brown like a thing he might eat. His ears throb. His body… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
There are fewer and fewer Jews in Ireland, but we still have one of the most famous Jewish characters in literary history,… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
Give life long enough and it will solve all your problems, including the one of being alive. — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
“There is something that happens to the mind in moments of terror. Perhaps we figure it's the last we'll ever have and we record… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
“The short sharp shock of three thousand mother two hundred mothers. The ones who picked through the supermarket debris for pieces of their dead… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
I'm not so sure that I can teach people how to, you know, write dialogue or create plot or anything like that. But if… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
“How long ago it was and how strange, but all dead friends come to life again sometimes.” — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
“She would want, instead, to recall him in the air, between layers of cloud. To give him back that ancient dignity.” — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
Novels are more difficult simply because they are longer and require more juggling, but short stories are closer to perfection, if you can get… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
I think one of the biggest political failures, and the biggest social failures, over the past few years has been the failure of empathy;… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
“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, but it's… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
“He has read whole volumes on the philosophy of nonviolence. How peace had to be understood in all its moral dimensions. The proper coexistence… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
