I'd Much Prefer To Write More Quickly.

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.

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.

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 Used To Take Five Or Six Books Away And Bring Five Or Six Books Back. Nobody Gave Me Direction Or Advice And I Read Much In The Way That A Boy Might Watch Television.

I Think That Each Of Us Inhabits A Private World That Others Cannot See. The Only Difference Between The Writer And The Reader Is That The Writer Is Able To Dramatise That Private World.