Quotes by Colum McCann

About Colum McCann:

Colum McCann is an Irish writer of literary fiction. He was born in Dublin, Ireland and now lives in New York. He is a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing in the Master of Fine Arts program at Hunter College, New York with fellow novelists Peter Carey and Claire Messud, and has visited many universities and colleges all over the world, including the European Graduate School.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I could tell from Anna's face that she had already told him about dancing in Saint Petersburg and that the memory weighed on her heavily. What monstrous things, our pasts, especially when they have been lovely. She had told a secret and now had the s...

Colum McCann

He's at ease, his body sculpted to the music, his shoulder searching the other shoulder, his right toe knowing the left knee, the height, the depth, the form, the control, the twist of his wrist, the bend of his elbow, the tilt of his neck, notes dig...

Colum McCann

Give life long enough and it will solve all your problems, including the one of being alive.

Colum McCann

All this miraculous hatred. Christ, a man can't eat his breakfast for filling his belly full of it.

Colum McCann

I have different books for different times of the day, let alone different seasons of the year!

Colum McCann

The further away we got from 9/11, the more I wanted to find some way to recover. I wanted to talk about the more anonymous corners of the city, because I think it's very important that not all of that anger was turned to revenge.

Colum McCann

I'm only telling you on the truth," he said. "If you can't stand the truth, don't ask for it.

Colum McCann

There's a part of me that thinks perhaps we go on existing in a place even after we've left it.

Colum McCann

Every now and then the city shook its soul out. It assailed you with an image, or a day, or a crime, or a terror, or a beauty so difficult to wrapy your mind around that you had to shake your head in disbelief.

Colum McCann

Literature can remind us that not all life is already written down: there are still so many stories to be told.

Colum McCann

There are moments we return to, now and always. Family is like water--it has a memory of what it once filled, always trying to get back to the original stream. I was on the bottom bunk again, listening to his slumber verses. The flap of our childhood...

Colum McCann

Rather he consoled himself with the fact that, in the real world, when he looked closely into the darkness he might find the presence of a light, damaged and bruised, but a little light all the same.

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 go to heaven, nobody wanting to die. The only thing worth grieving over, she said, was that sometimes there was more beauty in thi...

Colum McCann

Harry had worked his way through the American Dream and come to the conclusion that is was composed of a good lunch and a deep red wine that could soar.

Colum McCann

Even if people laughed at the notion of goodness, if they found it sentimental, or nostalgic, it didn't matter -- it was non ov those things, he said, and it had to be fought for.

Colum McCann

They told me Corrigan smashed all the bones in his chest when he hit the steering wheel. I thought, Well at least in heaven his Spanish chick'll be able to reach in and grab his heart.

Colum McCann

The repeated lies become history, but they don't necessarily become the truth.

Colum McCann

No shame in saying that I felt a loneliness drifting through me. Funny how it was, everyone perched in their own little world with the deep need to talk, each person with their own tale, beginning in some strange middle point, then trying so hard to ...

Colum McCann

We stumble on, thinks Jaslyn, bring a little noise into the silence, find in others the ongoing of ourselves. It is almost enough.

Colum McCann

Our father came to sleep in our house that night. He carried a small suitcase with a black mourning suit and a pair of polished shoes. Corrigan stopped him as he made his way up the stairs. 'Where d'you think you're going?'Our father gripped the bann...

Colum McCann

Author Bio

  • NameColum McCann
  • DescriptionIrish writer and journalist
  • BornFebruary 28, 1965
  • CountryIreland; United States Of America
  • ProfessionScreenwriter; Author; Novelist
  • WorksLet The Great World Spin
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; National Book Award