Quotes by John Banville

About John Banville:

William John Banville is an Irish novelist, adapter of dramas, and screenwriter. Recognised for his precise, cold, forensic prose style, Nabokovian inventiveness, and for the dark humour of his generally arch narrators, Banville is considered to be "one of the most imaginative literary novelists writing in the English language today." He has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov."
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

I like ideas. I find them more exciting than human behavior for the most part.

John Banville

Most crime fiction, no matter how 'hard-boiled' or bloodily forensic, is essentially sentimental, for most crime writers are disappointed romantics.

John Banville

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

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.

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.

John Banville

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

John Banville

I am the worst judge of my books.

John Banville

When fans of mine meet me, I can see the disappointment in their eyes. Every artist knows of this phenomenon.

John Banville

Dostoevsky is such a bad writer it is hard to take him seriously as a novelist, though he is a wonderful philosopher.

John Banville

I think I'm less the writer than I'm the written.

John Banville

With crime fiction, you have to write a half-dozen before they catch on.

John Banville

The Booker Prize is a big, popular prize for big, popular books, and that's the way it should be.

John Banville

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

The novel is resilient, and so are novelists.

John Banville

If I was asked to say what was the greatest invention of human beings, I would say the sentence.

John Banville

You can't write about fantasy without being ridiculous.

John Banville

The effect of prizes on one's career - if that is what to call it - is considerable, since they give one more clout with publishers and more notoriety among journalists. The effect on one's writing, however, is nil - otherwise, one would be in deep t...

John Banville

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 anywhere. Which is how it should be.

John Banville

Still the dream persists, suppressed but always there, that somehow by some miraculous effort of the heart what was done could be undone. What form would such atonement take that would turn back time and bring the dead to life? None. None possible, n...

John Banville

How flat all sounds are at the seaside, flat and yet emphatic, like the sound of gunshots heard at a distance.

John Banville

Author Bio

  • NameJohn Banville
  • DescriptionIrish writer
  • AliasesBenjamin Black; William John Banville
  • BornDecember 8, 1945
  • CountryIreland
  • ProfessionScreenwriter; Novelist; Writer; Playwright
  • WorksThe Book Of Evidence; Ghosts; Eclipse; Shroud; The Sea; The Infinities; Ancient Light
  • AwardsAustrian State Prize For European Literature; James Tait Black Memorial Prize; Franz Kafka Prize; Prince Of Asturia Literary Prize