John Banville Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“We writers are shy, nocturnal creatures. Push us into the light and the light blinds us.”

“How I envy writers who can work on aeroplanes or in hotel rooms. On the run I can produce an article or a book review, or even a film script, but for fiction I must have my own desk, my own wall with my own postcards pinned to it, and my own window not to look out of.”

“I sometimes think that I might be slightly autistic. There might be a syndrome that hasn't been named. I don't seem to see the world in the same way that most people I know see it. They don't seem to be baffled by 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.”

“I never went to university. I'm self-educated. I didn't go because I was too impatient, too arrogant.”

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

“I don't see how English as we use it in Europe can be revivified. It's like Latin must have been in about A.D. 300, tired and used up. All one can do is press very hard stylistically to make it glow.”

“Doing what you do well is death. Your duty is to keep trying to do things that you don't do well, in the hope of learning.”

“I like ideas. I find them more exciting than human behavior for the most part.”

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