Fran Mulhern

“Indians look very puzzled, surprised and offended to be shot but they go to the wall with noble mien I must allow. You can’t have nothing good in war without you punishing the guilty, the sergeant says with a savage air and no one says nothing against that. John Cole whispers to me that most times that sergeant he just wrong but just now and then he’s right and he’s right this time. I guess I’m thinking this is true. We get drunk then and the sergeant is clutching his belly all evening and then everything is blotted out till you awake in the bright early morning needing a piss and then it all floods back into your brain what happened and it makes your heart yelp like a dog.”
― Sebastian Barry, Days Without End

“And so it is to alcohol and women that the guilty man turns. This”
― Lucy Durneen, Wild Gestures: Stories

“Beware, beware of those who care,’ as some wise person said. Not that I’m suggesting there is anything wrong with caring. But as Granny Maud used to say, ‘Fine words butter no parsnips,’ and she might have added, ‘Caring should be felt and not heard.”
― Salley Vickers, Cousins

“And I have come to see that the better you treat someone, the more you love them – which is why you must never let someone treat you badly, for the worse they do to you, the more they will hate you. I”
― Salley Vickers, Cousins