There's a part of me that thinks perhaps we go on existing in a place even after we've left it. Colum McCann More Quotes by Colum McCann More Quotes From Colum McCann I think a good novel can be a doorstop to despair. I also think the real bravery comes with those who prepared to go through that door and look at the world in all its grime and torment, and still find something of value, no matter how small. Colum McCann real doors thinking The tunnels of our lives connect, coming to daylight at the oddest moments, and then plunge us into the dark again. We return to the lives of those who have gone before us, a perplexing möbius strip until we come home, eventually, to ourselves. Colum McCann tunnels dark home Give life long enough and it will solve all your problems, including the one of being alive. Colum McCann alive giving long So much of her time spent like this: dreaming up things to say and never quite saying them. Colum McCann time-spent dream Even if people laughed at the notion of goodness, if they found it sentimental, or nostalgic, it didn't matter -- it was none of those things, he said, and it had to be fought for. Colum McCann sentimental matter people The real beauty in life is that beauty can sometimes occur. Colum McCann ballet real sometimes The essence of intelligence was to know when, or if, to expose even the heart's deep need for instruction. Colum McCann essence heart needs Ultimately, you can only ever write what you know. It's logically and philosophically impossible to write what you don't know. Colum McCann knows impossible writing Sometimes, in life, nothing happens. But, sometimes, nothing happens beautifully. Colum McCann sometimes-in-life happens sometimes Some people think love is the end of the road, and if you're lucky enough to find it, you stay there. Other people say it just becomes a cliff you drive off, but most people who've been around awhile know it's just a thing that changes day by day, and depending on how much you fight for it, you get it, or you hold on to it, or you lose it, but sometimes it's never even there in the first place. Colum McCann fighting love-is thinking Part of the beauty of fiction is that we come alive in a body that we don't own. Colum McCann alive body fiction I want the younger writer to know that she or he is meaningful, that what they have to say is powerful in this world. But they can't come indoors, they can't close the curtains, they can't, like, lock themselves away from the world and say nothing. Colum McCann locks powerful meaningful Literature can remind us that not all life is already written down: there are still so many stories to be told. Colum McCann literature life-is stories The repeated lies become history, but they don't necessarily become the truth. Colum McCann lying People think they know the mystery of living in your skin. They don't. There's no one who knows except the person who carts it around her own self. Colum McCann self people thinking 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 I can get them and grab them by the scruff of the neck and say, you can do this, and if I see that fire in their eyes, that's when I think I know a writer. Colum McCann eye writing thinking Stories are the best democracy we have. We are allowed to become the other we never dreamed we could be. Colum McCann democracy stories The world does not turn without moments of grace. Who cares how small. Colum McCann who-cares grace doe The person we know at first, she thinks, is not the one we know at last. Colum McCann lasts firsts thinking There are fewer and fewer Jews in Ireland, but we still have one of the most famous Jewish characters in literary history, of course, in Leopold Bloom. Colum McCann jew stills character
