John Banville

“He knows that after him everything will continue on much as before, except that there will be a minuscule absence, a barely detective gap in the so-called grand scheme, one unit fewer now. Or not even that, not even an empty space where he once was, for all will rush immediately to fill that vacuum. Pft. Gone. Recollections of him will remain in the minds of others for a while, but presently those others too will die and his few relics with them. And then all will be dark.”

“When I say I don't like my own work, that doesn't mean it isn't better than everyone else's.”

“I know some of my memories are made up and they are far more powerful than the things that actually happened. For example, I always remember my brother posting me a copy of 'Dubliners' from Africa, but he says he never did.”

“Dostoevsky is such a bad writer it is hard to take him seriously as a novelist, though he is a wonderful philosopher.”

“Writing keeps me at my desk, constantly trying to write a perfect sentence. It is a great privilege to make one’s living from writing sentences. The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordinary strings of words is a marvelous thing…For me, a line has to sing before it does anything else. The great thrill is when a sentence that starts out being completely plain suddenly begins to sing, rising far above itself and above any expectation I might have had for it. That’s what keeps me going on those dark December days when I think about how I could be living instead of writing.”

“In order really to write one has to sink deep into the self and become lost there.”

“The effect of prizes on one's career - if that is what to call it - is considerable, since they give one more clout with publishers and more notoriety among journalists. The effect on one's writing, however, is nil - otherwise, one would be in deep trouble.”

“He had scores to settle with the world, and she, at that moment, was world enough for him.”

“I would be far more critical than any reviewer could be of my own work. So I simply don't read them.”

“I've been wrestling with Kafka since I was an adolescent. I think he's a great aphorist, a great letter writer, a great diarist, a great short story writer, and a great novelist - I'd put novelist last.”

“When fans of mine meet me, I can see the disappointment in their eyes. Every artist knows of this phenomenon.”

“I don't own a Kindle, no. I love books, they are beautiful objects.”

“I'm full of self-doubt. I doubt everything I do. Everything I do is a failure.”

“We carry the dead with us only until we die too, and then it is we who are borne along for a little while, and then our bearers in their turn drop, and so on into the unimaginable generations.”

“I always think that if you know somebody's name then there's something slightly fraudulent about that person. Otherwise we wouldn't have heard of him or her.”

“When young writers approach me for advice, I remind them, as gently as I can, that they are on their own, with no help available anywhere. Which is how it should be.”

“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”

“We artists love to talk tough, but we're just as sentimental as everyone else when it comes down to it.”

“When I started writing, I was a great rationalist and believed I was absolutely in control. But the older one gets, the more confused, and for an artist I think that is quite a good thing: you allow in more of your instinctual self; your dreams, fantasies and memories. It's richer, in a way.”

“The Booker Prize is a big, popular prize for big, popular books, and that's the way it should be.”