I read all the time. I was reading a book I admire very much by Alice McDermot called Charming Billy. — John McGahern Copy Share Image
But that private world, once it's dramatised, doesn't live again until it finds a reader. — John McGahern Copy Share Image
I think there's a great difference in consciousness in that same way in that when we're young we read books for the… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
The rosary was said every evening. I always liked that sentence about the medieval Churches, that they were the Bibles of the… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
“I think that each of us inhabits a private world that others cannot see. The only difference between the writer and the… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
Amongst Women concentrated on the family, and the new book concentrates on a small community. The dominant units in Irish society are… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
“If it's well written, even an obscene book cannot be immoral. John McGahern, Galway, October 6th 2003. "Acclaimed as the most important… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
Without the book business it would be difficult or impossible for true books to find their true readers and without that solitary… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
I used to take five or six books away and bring five or six books back. Nobody gave me direction or advice… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
“A local butcher offered me money to put in my next book a portrayal of a customer he didn't like that would… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
I belong to the middle class that grew up very influenced by the Catholic church. The people of the novel are from… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
“They'd listen silenty, with grave faces: but once they'd turn to each other they'd smile cruelly. He couldn't have it both ways. He'd put… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
“…But all life turns away from its own eventual hopelessness, leaving insomnia and its night to lovers and the dying.” — John McGahern Copy Share Image
Yes, but also one of the problems for a novelist in Ireland is the fact that there are no formal manners. I mean some… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
My favorite optimist was an American who jumped off the Empire State Building, and as he passed the 42nd floor, the window washers heard… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
The imagination demands that life be told slant because of its need of distance. — John McGahern Copy Share Image
“When a long abuse of power is corrected, it is generally replaced by an opposite violence. In the new dispensation all that was good… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
But that private world, once it's dramatised, doesn't live again until it finds a reader. — John McGahern Copy Share Image
Yes, though I have nothing but gratitude for my upbringing in the church. — John McGahern Copy Share Image
“McGahern still lives on and works a farm in Leitrim, and friends say that even though he has held high profile academic posts round… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
When I start to write, words have become physical presence. It was to see if I could bring that private world to life that… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
