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 Books Copy Share Image
Anything that is given can be at once taken away. We have to learn never to expect anything, and when it comes… — John McGahern Given Copy Share Image
“As looking down from great heights brings the urge to fall and end the terror of falling, so his very watching put… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
“His abhorrence and fear of alcohol did not extend to his power as host. He kept a huge cupboard of drinks in… — John McGahern Alcohol Copy Share Image
...with a rush of feeling he felt that this must be happiness. As soon as the thought came to him, he fought… — John McGahern Blame Copy Share Image
“The woman dying of cancer in The Barracks facing the raw fear of everything in her life disintegrating. The abused adolescent boy… — John McGahern Death Copy Share Image
“Time should have stopped with the clocks but instead it moved in a glazed dream of tiredness without their ticking insistence.” — John McGahern Dreams Copy Share Image
“For the girls the regular comings and goings restored their superior sense of self, a superiority they had received intact from Moran… — John McGahern Sense of self Copy Share Image
Among its many other obligations, fiction always has to be believable. Life does not have to suffer such constraint, and much of… — John McGahern Believable 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 Able Copy Share Image
I mean I think that's a fact and I think that we had a very peculiar type of Catholic Church here in… — John McGahern Catholic Copy Share Image
I think it's linked to the realisation that we're not going to live forever and that the way of saying and the… — John McGahern Forever Copy Share Image
“To leave the everpresent tension of Great Meadow was like shedding stiff, formal clothes or kicking off pinching shoes.” — John McGahern Copy Share Image
I've never written anything that hasn't been in my mind for a long time - seven or eight years. — John McGahern Eight Copy Share Image
I think technique can be taught but I think the only way to learn to write is to read, and I see… — John McGahern Education Copy Share Image
Nothing ever holds together unless it is mixed with some of one's own blood — John McGahern Blood Copy Share Image
“Across her face there seemed to pass many feelings and reflections: it was as if she ached to touch and gather in… — John McGahern Change Copy Share Image
“Sensing her hard separateness in their separate footsteps as they walked towards her home in the sleeping suburbs, he began to feel… — John McGahern Fullness of life Copy Share Image
For example, it's only about 20 years ago the people in that community would have got telephone lines, and it would be… — John McGahern Community Copy Share Image
“About this time, whether he felt there wasn't sufficient drama in his life or that he was determined not to be outdone… — John McGahern Death Copy Share Image
The way I see it is that all the ol' guff about being Irish is a kind of nonsense. I mean, I… — John McGahern Chinese Copy Share Image
The best of life is life lived quietly, where nothing happens but our calm journey through the day, where change is imperceptible… — John McGahern Calm Copy Share Image
We absolutely believed in Heaven and Hell, Purgatory, and even Limbo. I mean, they were actually closer to us than Australia or… — John McGahern Australia Copy Share Image
