Patrick had left behind some writings, and one of his most famous works was something many of us learned in school called “Saint Patrick’s Breastplate,” a kind of a cross between a hymn and a poem.
Start with the difficult and when it gets easy, everything else is easier.
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.
The human face does not always reflect the beauty that may repose in the soul.
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.
To have come from Ireland no matter how long ago is to be of Ireland in some part forever.
The one joy that has kept me going through life has been the fact that stories unite us. To see you as you listen to me now, as you have always listened to me, is to know this: what I can believe, you can believe. And the way we all see our story-not just as Irish people but as flesh and blood individuals and not the way people tell us to see it-that’s what we own, no matter who we are and where we come from.
The point about words is – the better you use them, the stronger is the thought that wears them.
Beneath its broad surface, storytelling should always work hard to say more than it seems to.
Stories are where you go to look for the truth of your own life.
But can you make someone feel the world all around loves them? Can you make them feel the rain is for cooling them, the wind is for drying them, the sun is for warming them?
There’s always good news wrapped up in bad news.
A thing doesn’t have to be true, he said, for a person to get joy out of it. What it has to be is not evil or malicious.
I suppose if you’ve always been wrapped in wool, you don’t know it’s wool.
Can you lead to dignity a man abused by his employer? Can you give hope for a new life to a woman whose infant has died? Can you guide an oppressed people to freedom and power?
What are you like inside? Don’t you have feelings where you love everyone, and at the same time you hate everyone? Or – don’t you have times when everything goes the way you want, but nothing feels good or right? That’s what I mean,” he’d say, “about my black horse and my white horse.
What’s the odd one out between an egg, a drum, and a potato?” Ronan shook his head, mystified. “You can beat an egg. You can beat a drum. But you can’t beat a potato. D’you get it, do you?” Matt.
Tonight, I’m certainly going to tell you a story, but ’tis a story with a difference because, unlike virtually every other tale I tell-in this case, I was there. And yet I know that although I was there, and I saw people who were real, they have since become somewhat imagined-because I now view them through my memory. That’s something every human being does-but storytellers live by it.
I’ve just had very bad news.” “What’s the good news inside it? There’s always good news wrapped up in bad news.” “Jesus God, I don’t know.” “But there is.” “That’s ludicrously optimistic.” Lelia said, “You’ll have to use smaller words, you’re in Clare now.” Ronan.
My mother used to say, “Fun is fun till someone loses an eye.