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John Banville Quotes
John Banville Quotes
John Banville
Irish
Novelist
Born:
Dec 8
,
1945
Me
People
Think
Work
Writing
You
Related authors:
Elizabeth Bowen
Frank Delaney
George A. Moore
James Joyce
Laurence Sterne
Maeve Binchy
Robert Graves
Roddy Doyle
I'm full of self-doubt. I doubt everything I do. Everything I do is a failure.
John Banville
Failure
Doubt
Everything
Self-Doubt
Full
We writers are shy, nocturnal creatures. Push us into the light and the light blinds us.
John Banville
Light
Writers
Push
Nocturnal
Blinds
Us
Creatures
Shy
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.
John Banville
People
World
Sometimes
Think
Syndrome
Way
Slightly
See
Seem
Baffled
Named
Know
Most
Been
Same
Autistic
Might
I would be far more critical than any reviewer could be of my own work. So I simply don't read them.
John Banville
Work
Own
Critical
Would
Would-Be
My Own
More
Could
Simply
Read
Reviewer
Than
Any
Them
Far
We're constantly losing - we're losing time, we're losing ourselves. I don't feel for the things I lost.
John Banville
Time
Losing
Lost
Ourselves
Constantly
Feel
Things
I don't know if there is a personal identity. We all imagine that we are absolute individuals. But when we begin to look for where this individuality resides, it's very difficult to find.
John Banville
Difficult
Find
Absolute
Individuality
Individuals
Know
Look
Identity
Very
Begin
Personal
Personal Identity
Where
Resides
Imagine
I always think that if you know somebody's name then there's something slightly fraudulent about that person. Otherwise we wouldn't have heard of him or her.
John Banville
You
Somebody
Think
Otherwise
Slightly
Fraudulent
About
Something
Name
Know
Him
Always
Heard
Person
Then
Her
We artists love to talk tough, but we're just as sentimental as everyone else when it comes down to it.
John Banville
Love
Tough
Down
Else
Everyone
Everyone Else
Talk
Just
Artists
Sentimental
Most crime fiction, no matter how 'hard-boiled' or bloodily forensic, is essentially sentimental, for most crime writers are disappointed romantics.
John Banville
Matter
Crime
Crime Fiction
Writers
Disappointed
Most
How
Forensic
Essentially
Fiction
Romantics
Sentimental
The novel is resilient, and so are novelists.
John Banville
Novel
Novelists
Resilient
If I was asked to say what was the greatest invention of human beings, I would say the sentence.
John Banville
Invention
Say
Would
Greatest
Human
Human Beings
Sentence
Asked
Beings
Dostoevsky is such a bad writer it is hard to take him seriously as a novelist, though he is a wonderful philosopher.
John Banville
Wonderful
Seriously
Philosopher
Though
Bad
Writer
Take
He
Him
Hard
Novelist
All art at a certain level is entertainment. We go to a tragedy by Sophocles to be entertained.
John Banville
Art
Entertainment
Entertained
Go
Tragedy
Certain
Certain Level
Level
I think I'm less the writer than I'm the written.
John Banville
Think
Writer
Written
Than
Less
Why does the past seem so magical, so fraught, so luminous? At the time it was just, ugh, another boring bloody day. But, to look back on, it's a day full of miracles and light and extraordinary events. Why is this? What process do we apply to the past, to give it this vividness? I don't know.
John Banville
Time
Day
Events
Light
Miracles
Past
Extraordinary
Back
Fraught
Boring
Magical
Seem
Give
Know
Look
Another
Does
Bloody
Just
Process
Full
Why
Luminous
Apply
We think we're living in the present, but we're really living in the past.
John Banville
Past
Living
Think
In The Past
Really
Present
With crime fiction, you have to write a half-dozen before they catch on.
John Banville
You
Crime
Before
Crime Fiction
Write
Catch
Fiction
I don't make a distinction between men and women. To me they are just people.
John Banville
Me
Women
People
Men
Men And Women
Distinction
Between
Make
Just
I like ideas. I find them more exciting than human behavior for the most part.
John Banville
Behavior
Find
More
Part
Exciting
Like
Ideas
Most
Than
Human
Human Behavior
Them
Life is tragic but it's equally comic.
John Banville
Life
Equally
Comic
Tragic
I've always been fascinated by physics and cosmology. It gets more and more scary the older you get.
John Banville
You
Physics
Older
Cosmology
Scary
More
More And More
Always
Been
Get
Gets
Fascinated
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.
John Banville
Dreams
Good
Great
You
Memories
Writing
Confused
Control
Older
Think
Way
More
Absolutely
Good Thing
Allow
Self
Instinctual
Gets
Artist
Quite
Fantasies
Richer
Your
Your Dreams
Believed
Thing
Started
I never went to university. I'm self-educated. I didn't go because I was too impatient, too arrogant.
John Banville
Arrogant
Too
Impatient
Never
Because
Go
University
I suppose it's possible that a writer would have feeling for his characters, but I can't see how, because writing is such a meticulous, intricate, technical business. I wish I could say that I love my characters and that frequently they take over the book and run away with the plot and so on. But they don't exist.
John Banville
Love
Business
Book
Writing
Feeling
Wish
Say
Intricate
Plot
Possible
Characters
Run
Would
See
Could
Writer
Take
Over
Suppose
Because
Frequently
How
His
Exist
Meticulous
Technical
Away
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.
John Banville
Tired
Latin
Press
Must
See
About
Like
Make
Glow
How
Stylistically
Been
Up
Very
Use
Used
Hard
English
Europe
With the crime novels, it's delightful to have protagonists I can revisit in book after book. It's like having a fictitious family.
John Banville
Family
Book
Crime
Having
Delightful
Like
Protagonists
Revisit
After
Fictitious
Novels
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