Niall Williams Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

There are only three great puzzles in the world, the puzzle of love, the puzzle of death, and, between each of these and part of both of them, the puzzle of God. God is the greatest puzzle of all.

Niall Williams
Hope may or may not be a Thing with Feathers. But it's definitely a Thing with Claws.

Niall Williams
The water is this marvellous blue. It's so blue that once you see it you realise you've never seen blue before. That other thing you were calling blue is some other colour, it's not blue. This, this is blue. It's a blue that comes down from the sky into the water so that when you look in the sea you think sky and when you look at the sky you think sea.

Niall Williams
It was as if we were at the heart of a maze. We were overwhelmed by the enormity of the tasks ahead. Mary had given us a bottle of milk and a spoonful of loose tea, and so, unable to decide what to do, we did what all Irish men and women do: we had tea. Suddenly the sun appeared and not for the first or last time we felt it uplifting us and changing everything. It seemed like a holiday.

Niall Williams
All writers are waiting for replies. That's what I've learned. Maybe all human beings are

Niall Williams
When you're different you've got two choices. You can stand out or you step back.

Niall Williams
When my father first took me to Ennis Library I went down among the shelves and felt company, not only the company of writers, but the readers too, because they had lifted and opened and read these books. The books were worn in a way they can only get worn by hands and eyes and minds

Niall Williams
We tell stories. We tell stories to pass the time, to leave the world for a while, or go more deeply into it. We tell stories to heal the pain of living.

Niall Williams
The world is more outlandish than some people's imaginations.

Niall Williams