John Jeremiah Sullivan Quotes & Sayings

“Freaky things happen all the time in the world. I suppose everything has to happen for the first time at some point.”

“I'm a passionate believer in revision, and a lot of my writing gets done during revision process. It isn't just tweaking: I tend to break it apart and remake it every time I do a new draft.”

“The greenness of Ireland is a false greenness, after all. Not that it isn't green - the place can still make you have to pull off and swallow one of your heart pills. It's that the greenness doesn't mean what it seems. It doesn't encode a pastoral past, much less a timeless vale where wee folk trip the demesne.”

“As the planet warms, evolution speeds. We've known this for a long time.”

“At 'GQ,' there was never a temptation to pander or preach to the choir because I had no concept of who the reader was or what that reader might want.”

“Ireland starts for me with the end of 'The Dead,' which my father read to me from his desk in his basement office in New Albany, Ind.”

“It is a curious fact that the word 'essayist' showed up in English before it existed in French.”

“Not watching TV gets me in a lot of trouble in my household because my wife and daughter have a lot of shows they like to watch.”

“Reporting provides reminders that things are always more complicated than you think.”

“The city of Cork - the urban center, where all the shops and bars and everything are - is actually an island, a river island.”