Top 22 Tom Paulin Quotes

This sympathy is not translated into force against the British government because it is not like the anti- apartheid movement which had a high profile here and Mandela is a more engaging figure than Yasser Arafat.

Again and again, I find something eerie in many Irish occasions – the unrelenting whiteness, the emotional tribal attachments, the violent prejudices lurking beneath apparently pleasant social surfaces, the cosy smugness of belonging.

A truly vibrant and creative culture depends on a system of education which is not divided along class and sectarian lines.

I think protest and actions have to be organised against the Israelis and their backers. There needs to be a concerted high profile campaign to raise awareness of the people in this country.

I do most of the cooking. I’m kind of domestic, untidily so.

I don’t think the British carry a historical consciousness either.

I am not very moved by historical apologies.

I went to a grim Victorian school with classes of 40 or 50 children. It was a very rigid and unimaginative education, but it did teach us the three Rs.

It’s ironic that early on in the war with Afghanistan, the Americans and the British were saying, ‘We recognise there must be a Palestinian state,’ then they rapidly forgot about it. I think history will show that that kind of amnesia will come back to haunt you.

I’m kind of domestic, untidily so.

My parents were Northern Ireland Labour party people. We read the ‘Guardian’ and the ‘New Statesman,’ listened to the BBC. The house was full of books. We didn’t get a television until ‘That Was The Week That Was’ started. There was nothing to do but read.

Everyone who supports Israel is a Zionist.

Look, you’re either a Zionist or an anti-Zionist: there’s no middle way. Everyone who supports the state of Israel is a Zionist.

All I do is read books, really. I worry about that sometimes. I don’t seem to have a hobby or anything.

I wish I could write lyrical poems, but I just write the way they come.

I never believed that Israel had the right to exist at all.

‘Ulysses’ is the greatest anti-racist text in the English language, and it challenges right from the beginning the vicious racism which lies near the foundations of the Irish Free State and of the Irish republic.

Teachers are the ministers and priests of culture, its practitioners and its emissaries.

I always feel freelance writers are leading a heroic life. I think that is the real writer’s life. On the other hand, it’s good to have another job. It gives you something to do.

Many black people I know are proud of the Irish part of their heritage – an Irish grandparent, say – but they recognise that many people believe in a form of racial purity. And it is from that belief that prejudice starts.

Unfortunately, in the north and the south of Ireland, intolerant habits are part of the fabric of emotion, part of the identity crisis which afflicts the population of the country.

I think attacks on civilians in fact boost morale.