I Think My Mother Was Very Spiritual.

Ireland Is A Peculiar Society In The Sense That It Was A Nineteenth Century Society Up To About 1970 And Then It Almost Bypassed The Twentieth Century.

Without The Book Business It Would Be Difficult Or Impossible For True Books To Find Their True Readers And Without That Solitary (and Potentially Subversive) Alone With A Book The Whole Razzmatazz Of Prizes, Banquets, Television Spectaculars, Bestseller Lists, Even Literature Courses, Editors And Authors, Are All Worthless. Unless A Book Finds Lovers Among Those Solitary Readers, It Will Not Live . . . Or Live For Long.

I Belong To The Middle Class That Grew Up Very Influenced By The Catholic Church. The People Of The Novel Are From A More Pagan And Practical World In Which The Christianity Is Just A Veneer.

I Think Fiction Is A Very Serious Thing, That While It Is Fiction, It Is Also A Revelation Of Truth, Or Facts.

I Think Technique Can Be Taught But I Think The Only Way To Learn To Write Is To Read, And I See Writing And Reading As Completely Related. One Almost Couldn't Exist Without The Other.