Colum McCann

She wanted to tell him so mach, on the tarmac, the day he left. The world is run by brutal men and…

— Colum McCann

“It was that time of the century when the idea of a gentleman had almost become myth. The Great War had concussed…

— Colum McCann

I love short stories. They're like small imploding universes. They are very tightly bound and controlled. I'd been wanting to write one…

— Colum McCann

I think a good novel can be a doorstop to despair. I also think the real bravery comes with those who prepared…

— Colum McCann

“Her smile could've broken glass.”

— Colum McCann

I grew up sort of middle class, safe and suburban.

— Colum McCann

“The core reason for it all was beauty. Walking was a divine delight. Everything was rewritten when he was up in the…

— Colum McCann

“A brand-new thought: Transatlantic airmail. She tests the phrase, scratching it out on the paper, over and over, transatlantic, trans atlas, trans…

— Colum McCann

“If you think of the world without people it's about the most perfect thing there ever is. It's all balanced and shit.…

— Colum McCann

“--A priest? I said. --A monk or some such. One of those worker guys. Liberation theowhateveritis. --Theologian, said the other. --One of…

— Colum McCann

I mean, every novel's a historical novel anyway. But calling something a historical novel seems to put mittens on it, right? It…

— Colum McCann

Stories are the best democracy we have. We are allowed to become the other we never dreamed we could be.

— Colum McCann

“So, leave the cynics be. Out-cynic them. Step into that elsewhere. Believe that your story is bigger than yourself. In”

— Colum McCann

“We could not have found peace unless the desire for it was already here.”

— Colum McCann

“He was aware that the essence of proper intelligence was the embrace of contradiction. And the recognition of complexity was to be…

— Colum McCann

“Gloria laughed at them and said that she’d overtaken grief a long time ago, that she was tired of everyone wanting to…

— Colum McCann

“I recalled the myth that I had once heard as a university student – thirty-six hidden saints in the world, all of…

— Colum McCann

The short story is an imploding universe. It has all the boil of energy inside it. A novel has shrapnel going all…

— Colum McCann

“There wasn't much left for anyone to die for, except the right to remain peculiar.”

— Colum McCann

She was forever tilted sideways by the notion that pain was inevitable, chance was cruel, and all human ingenuity should go towards…

— Colum McCann

“The Irish were poor, but not enslaved. He had come here to hack away at the ropes that held American slavery in…

— Colum McCann

“Nothing was simple, certainly not simplification.”

— Colum McCann

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

— Colum McCann

“Another day, another dolor.”

— 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