Quotes from Frank Delaney

The wisest men tell us that everything, sooner or later, changes. And all change commences with a specific moment. We say to ourselves, "I won't do this again, I must become different." And we succeed--eventually.

The Wayfarer.

He shouldn't be telling her this. He's using information from my life to give himself power. I loathe that.

There's a legend...that says all couples who are meant to marry are connected by an invisible silver cord. The matchmaking gods tie that cord around their ankles at birth, and in time the gods pull those cords tighter and tighter. Slowly, slowly, over the next twenty or thirty or forty years, they draw the couple toward each other until they meet.

It gives an artist's impression. Which has a kind of truth.

Is life worth living? It depends on the liver.

I give people hope.

Her name was Sorcha--the English call it Sarah--and she grew up in a family related to the king of Leinster.

O'Mara, if you waste the gifts you have, I'll personally scourge you. That's a warning." Ronan hoisted his rucksack feebly. "And if I don't?" "I'll say, 'Good man.' Now go and mend the holes in your life. And do it decently, for Christ's sake. Don't act like a boor. Piss out any vinegar in your bloodstream. No one meant you any harm.

Brendan, as you know, is called "Brendan the Navigator.

Oliver Cromwell chose not to bring his marauders over here because one of his generals had reported that the country west of the Shannon contained "not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him.

Some people waste their smiles by using them too often. Not Patrick. He rarely smiled—but when he did, his face shone like the sun after rain.

I have a number of such wells in mind. In county Longford, not far from the town of Granard, a spring bubbles in some rough ground a few yards from the roadside. Climb the old wire fence where it ties into a tree, walk in a north-westerly direction, and look out for some unexpected ferns and water fronds; the big green blades will catch your eye.

Every pain is a lesson.

Do you know what the difference is between Friendship and Love? Friendship is the photograph, Love is the oil painting.

We Irish prefer embroideries to plain cloth. To us Irish, memory is a canvas--stretched, primed, and ready for painting on. We love the "story" part of the word "history," and we love it trimmed out with color and drama, ribbons and bows. Listen to our tunes, observe a Celtic scroll: we always decorate our essence.

When I come out on the road of a morning, when I have had a night's sleep and perhaps a breakfast, and the sun lights a hill on the distance, a hill I know I shall walk across an hour or two thence, and it is green and silken to my eye, and the clouds have begun their slow, fat rolling journey across the sky, no land in the world can inspire such love in a common man.

Start with the difficult and when it gets easy, everything else is easier.

The difference between a friend and an enemy is friendliness.

What I told you tonight - it isn't my story alone. It belongs to every Irish person living and dead. And every Irish person living and dead belongs to it. And to all the story of Ireland; blood and bones, legends, guns and dreams, Catholics, Protestants, England, horses and poets and lovers.

Find your soul and you'll live. Lose your soul and you'll die.

To have come from Ireland no matter how long ago is to be of Ireland in some part forever.

Marriage is very important. Marrying a girl is the most important thing a man can do. Never mind business or politics or sport or any of that, there's nothing so vital to the world as a man marrying a woman. That's where we get our children from, that's how the human race goes forward. And if it's too late for children, there's the companionship of a safe and trusted person.

I believe the world of the spirit is in general greatly neglected and not at all served by the practice of faith as we know it, because religion isn't individual enough.