Author

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.

From John Banville

For memory, we use our imagination. We take a few strands of real time and carry them with us, then like an oyster we create a pearl around them.

From John Banville

We think we're living in the present, but we're really living in the past.

From John Banville

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.

From John Banville

I've always been fascinated by physics and cosmology. It gets more and more scary the older you get.

From John Banville

It's great people still care about books, and it's great you can still fashion a life from literature.

From John Banville

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

From John Banville

Writers are just like other people, except slightly more obsessed.

From John Banville

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.

From John Banville

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

From John Banville

John Banville

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