Best John Banville Sayings
- Happiness was different in childhood. It was so much then a matter simply of accumulation, of taking things - new experiences, new emotions - and… Accumulation
- The past beats inside me like a second heart. Beats
- The trouble with you, Vic," he said, "is that you think of the world as a sort of huge museum with too many visitors allowed… Allowed
- There are times, they occur with increasing frequency nowadays, when I seem to know nothing, when everything I know seems to have fallen out of… All
- You will remember this when all else fades, this moment, here, together, by this well. There will be certain days, and certain nights, you’ll feel… All
- All my life I have lied. I lied to escape, I lied to be loved, I lied for placement and power; I lied to lie.… All
- What I was afraid of was my own grief, the weight of it, the ineluctable corrosive force of it, and the stark awareness I had… Afraid
- In order really to write one has to sink deep into the self and become lost there. Become Lost
- All I wanted was to be left alone. They abhor a vacuum, other people. You find a quiet corner where you can hunker down in… Abhor
- Perhaps all of life is no more than a long preparation for the leaving of it. All
- Where I went, no one could follow. Yet someone managed to hold my hand. Follow
- 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… Along
- We writers are shy, nocturnal creatures. Push us into the light and the light blinds us. Blinds
- Writers are just like other people, except slightly more obsessed. Except
- I read Nietzsche when I was a teenager and then I went back to reading him when I was in my thirties, and his voice… Artist
- With crime fiction, you have to write a half-dozen before they catch on. Catch
- All novels must be autobiographical because I am the only material that I know. All of the characters are me. But at the same time,… All
- 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,… Aeroplanes
- When fans of mine meet me, I can see the disappointment in their eyes. Every artist knows of this phenomenon. Artist
- 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… Advice
- I live in Dublin, God knows why. There are greatly more congenial places I could have settled in - Italy, France, Manhattan - but I… Climate