"The travail of freedom and justice is not easy, but nothing serious and important in life is easy. The history of humanity has been a continuing struggle against temptation and tyranny - and very little worthwhile has ever been achieved without pain."

"Although the deepest of snow in living memory lay upon the ground, the sun was shining and Aurelia breathed easiest out of doors. The four walls of any given room could not give her the horizons she longed for - horizons she could measure with her eyes and strive to conquer with her own two legs. She was like a wild animal, Cook always said."

"That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation."

"The nineteenth century, especially the second half of it, was a time of restatement in Ireland. After the famine, after the failed rebellions of the Forties and Sixties, the cultural and political desires for self-determination began to shape each other in a series of riffs on independence and identity."

"Searching means having a goal, but finding means being free, being open, having no goal ... Because in striving for your goal there are many things you do not see, which are directly in front of your eyes."