Kevin Barry Quotes & Sayings

“I remember, as a child, a particular groan that my father would sound when he crawled from the bed in the morning. I hear the same groan now, precisely, every morning, when I emerge from my own lair. It's more than an expression of physical weariness - it's an aching of the soul. Even the groans get passed down.”

“The short story is a very natural mode of storytelling; most stories can be told quickly. I always think of them as like a tightrope walk - every sentence is a step along the rope, and you can so easily misplace your step and break your neck.”

“In the early nineties, I was a cub reporter on a city newspaper in Limerick, and assigned to the courthouse there. One day, an old detective sergeant came and whispered to me in the press pit. He pointed out a young offender, a teenager who was up for stealing a car or something relatively minor, and said, 'See this kid? He'll kill.'”

“I greatly enjoyed working as a freelance journalist, because it gets you out of the house, and it gets you talking to people, but it wasn't satisfying all of my cravings, and I knew that I needed to work with the other side of my brain - the darker, murkier side!”

“I was a cub reporter on a local newspaper in Limerick city, and I used to cover the district court meetings. All of life passed through the Limerick courthouse. Misery, malevolence, the dark side of humanity... I tell ya, it made 'Angela's Ashes' look like 'The Wonderful World of Disney.'”

“I go to Spain a lot, in winter, for a blast of sunlight to banish the blues brought on by the Irish greys and drizzle. I love the cities of the Spanish interior.”

“Frazzled and delirious, as I've just finished a new book of stories. I feel like Moses staggering down the mountainside with the tablets of stone.”

“Very first thing in the morning, I spew some rough genius directly on to the laptop. Then I have coffee and rewrite for three hours.”

“What greatly annoys me is sometimes you see the short story being described as a training ground for the novel. Kind of like an apprenticeship. And in lots of ways, it's a far harder form.”

“Get up, groan, write a bit, moan, eat breakfast, write some more, cycle my bike through the Sligo hills, make up country songs as I pedal along, sing them, have lunch, have a nap, groan, moan, write a small bit more, cook dinner, feed wifey, open a bottle, or several, slump, sleep.”