Colum McCann
Colum McCann
Colum McCannis 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 Tea Obreht, and has visited many universities and colleges all over the world...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth28 February 1965
CountryIreland
memories looks clean
One look at each other and it was immediately understood that they both needed a clean slate,,, The obliteration of memory.
heart essence needs
The essence of intelligence was to know when, or if, to expose even the heart's deep need for instruction.
giving-up luxury vanity
The luxury of age was the giving up of vanity.
two rooms
There is always room for at least two truths.
cynicism easy optimist
Cynicism is easy. An optimist is a braver cynic.
accumulation incidents shelves
What was a life anyway? An accumulation of small shelves of incident.
art recovery joy
Stories are there to be told, and each story changes with the telling. Time changes them. Logic changes them. Grammar changes them. History changes them. Each story is shifted side-ways by each day that unfolds. Nothing ends. The only thing that matters, as Faulkner once put it, is the human heart in conflict with itself. At the heart of all this is the possibility, or desire, to create a piece of art that talks to the human instinct for recovery and joy.
real ballet life-is
The real beauty in life is that beauty can sometimes occur.
whatever-you-say
Whatever you say, say nothing.
thinking ordinary ordinary-life
I sit there thinking about how much courage it takes to live an ordinary life.
years discovery thrilling
Téa Obreht is the most thrilling literary discovery in years
said ifs asks
I'm only telling you on the truth," he said. "If you can't stand the truth, don't ask for it.
silly believe needs
Part of me really wants to believe that hope is entirely available to all of us. We don't have to embrace it. It would be sentimental and silly to say that we all need it, but it is absolutely available to all of us.
memories hearing firsts
We seldom know what we're hearing when we hear something for the first time, but one thing is certain: we hear it as we will never hear it again. We return to the moment to experience it, I suppose, but we can never really find it, only its memory, the faintest imprint of what really was, what it meant.