Colum McCann Years Quotations

About 25 years ago, I took a bicycle across the United States. I soon found out that the greatest item of clothing was the trusty bandanna. There were dozens of uses for a bandanna - as a pot holder, a chain cleaner, a sun shield, a headband, a snot rag, a declaration of Kerouacian intent.

I think one of the biggest political failures, and the biggest social failures, over the past few years has been the failure of empathy; not being able to look at the other person down the street.

Téa Obreht is the most thrilling literary discovery in years

The job of the writer is to look at where he is now and make some sort of emotional sense of it, not only for that moment but for years to come.

I have different books for different times of the day, let alone different seasons of the year!

I guess this is what marriage is, or was, or could be. You drop the mask. You allow the fatigue in. You lean across and kiss the years because they're the things that matter.