John Banville quotes - page 5

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, or even a film script, but for fiction I must have my own desk, my own wall with my own postcards pinned to it, and my own window not to look out of. (John Banville)
Saturday is a dismayingly bad book. The numerous set pieces-brain operations, squash game, the encounters with Baxter, etc. View quote
John Banville
Dostoevsky is such a bad writer it is hard to take him seriously as a novelist, though he is a wonderful philosopher. View quote
John Banville
All art at a certain level is entertainment. We go to a tragedy by Sophocles to be entertained. View quote
John Banville
I live in Dublin, God knows why. There are greatly more congenial places I could have settled in - Italy, France, Manhattan - but I like the climate here, and Irish light seems to be essential for me and for my writing. View quote
John Banville
Most crime fiction, no matter how 'hard-boiled' or bloodily forensic, is essentially sentimental, for most crime writers are disappointed romantics. View quote
John Banville
When you're writing there's a deep, deep level of concentration way below your normal self. This strange voice, these strange sentences come out of you. View quote
John Banville
I'm a hopeless 19th-century romantic. View quote
John Banville
I'm full of self-doubt. I doubt everything I do. Everything I do is a failure. View quote
John Banville
I would be far more critical than any reviewer could be of my own work. So I simply don't read them. View quote
John Banville
I am the worst judge of my books. (John Banville)
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. View quote
John Banville
I like ideas. I find them more exciting than human behavior for the most part. View quote
John Banville
The novel is resilient, and so are novelists. View quote
John Banville
I have this fantasy. I'm walking past a bookshop and I click my fingers and all my books go blank. So I can start again and get it right. View quote
John Banville
In my books you have to concentrate, but I work hard to make it that, when you do, the rewards are quite high. View quote
John Banville
Life is tragic but it's equally comic. View quote
John Banville
I've always been fascinated by physics and cosmology. It gets more and more scary the older you get. View quote
John Banville
I never went to university. I'm self-educated. I didn't go because I was too impatient, too arrogant. View quote
John Banville
I don't make a distinction between men and women. To me they are just people. View quote
John Banville
I think I'm less the writer than I'm the written. (John Banville)
All a work of art can do is present the surface. I can't know the insides of people. I know very little about the inside of myself. View quote
John Banville
I don't own a Kindle, no. I love books, they are beautiful objects. View quote
John Banville
It's great people still care about books, and it's great you can still fashion a life from literature. View quote
John Banville
We artists love to talk tough, but we're just as sentimental as everyone else when it comes down to it. View quote
John Banville