I was brought up Irish, where there was room for my own private world.

Trouble trouble and it will trouble you.

I think that Mary Poppins needs a subtle reader, in many respects, to grasp all its implications, and I understand that these cannot be translated in terms of the film.

I’ve felt that if I just used initials nobody would know whether I was a man or a woman, a dog or a tiger. I could hide from view, like a bat on the underside of a branch.

More and more I’ve become convinced that the great treasure to possess is the unknown.

And all the time he was enjoying his badness, hugging it to him as though it were a friend, and not caring a bit.

You can ask me anything you like about my work, but I’ll never talk about myself.

The Irish, as a race, have the oral tradition in their blood. A direct question to them is an anathema, but in other cases, a mere syllable of a hero’s name will elicit whole chapters of stories.

Child and serpent, star and stone – all one.

When I was a child, love to me was what the sea is to a fish: something you swim in while you are going about the important affairs of life.