"To unfold the secret laws and relations of those high faculties of thought by which all beyond the merely perceptive knowledge of the world and of ourselves is attained or matured, is a object which does not stand in need of commendation to a rational mind"
"I don't even know what the odds are for one kid or one team to make it here. Obviously, being from Canada this is their Stanley Cup - they made it. It's hard enough to get here and it's hard enough to advance"
"It... is the best opportunity we've had in the last 25 years to bring about a settlement in Northern Ireland, and I think we should leave no stone unturned to achieve that"
"I now bid farewell to the country of my birth - of my passions - of my death; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies - whose factions I sought to quell - whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim - whose freedom has been my fatal dream"
"The extent to which all people in our society are made to count, and believe that they count, is not just a measure of decency; it makes sound economic sense"
"We pay for the navy, and we have no commerce for the navy to protect; we pay for the army, and we loathe and execrate the work upon which it has been engaged"
"Fraud, robbery, and murder have characterized the English usurpation of the government of our country. Why, for the last fifty years we have been robbed in the matter of taxes of hundreds of millions"
"It wasn't like a Maths test where I have to strain to get it right. I feel very close to Luna so acting her was just natural. And if I had got too nervous I'd have done terribly"
"I think you know what you're up against when you take on a piece that you know is going to involve dragging up a lot emotions - you can end up being deeply immersed in gloom"
"The soldiers' last meal is generally served out about five o'clock in the afternoon, sometimes earlier; and a stretch of fourteen hours intervenes between then and breakfast"
"Even the distribution of rations leaves much to be desired; the fatigue party, well-intentioned and sympathetic though it be, often finds itself short of provisions"
"Joyce for all his devotion to his art, terrible in its austerity, was a lad born with a song on one side of him, a dance on the other; two gay guardian angels every human ought to have"
"And I might add the confidence with which distracted persons do oftentimes, when they are awake, think, they see black fiends in places, where there is no black object in sight without them"
"Where do I begin? I loved working with Kate Hepburn, which was one of the highlights of my life; Working with Richard Burton in Beckett was another great joy"
"At Leeds I've tried to concentrate on my club form, but you get caught up in all the World Cup fever once you come back to Ireland and see all the Irish boys again"
"The people I want are very famous and very rich, and all I can offer them is a bit of exposure on TV and a bit of cash, so it's a miracle we get any guests at all. But we have been very lucky"
"It's hard to know whether certain characters come to life or not, they either come to have their own life or they don't. I've written many things in which the characters just remain inert"
"I've also worked hard portraying an Ireland which is fast disappearing. Ireland was a very depressed and difficult place in the 1980s, and I've tried to include that in the script. I worked really hard to find the heart of the book"
