είναι η θεία Κούλα

“It was a condensed explanation, but I came to understand him to mean you could stop at, not all, but most of the moments of your life, stop for one heartbeat and, no matter what the state of your head or heart, say This is happiness, because of the simple truth that you were alive to say it.”
― Niall Williams, This Is Happiness

“The past is everlasting.”
― John Irving, The Last Chairlift

“Books, music, painting are not life, can never be as full, rich, complex, surprising or beautiful, but the best of them can catch an echo of that, can turn you back to look out the window, go out the door aware that you’ve been enriched, that you have been in the company of something alive that has caused you to realise once again how astonishing life is, and you leave the book, gallery or concert hall with that illumination, which feels I’m going to say holy, by which I mean human raptness. So”
― Niall Williams, This Is Happiness

“One of the things about Irish music is how one tune can enter another. You can begin with one reel, and with no clear intention of where you will be going after that, but halfway through it will sort of call up the next so that one reel becomes another and another after that, and unlike the clear-edged definitions of songs, the music keeps linking, making this sound-map even as it travels it, so player and listener are taken away and time and space are defeated. You’re in an elsewhere. Something like that. Which, I suppose, is both my method and aim in telling this story too. Anyway,”
― Niall Williams, This Is Happiness