The Imagination Demands That Life Be Told

When I Start To Write, Words Have Become Physical Presence. It Was To See If I Could Bring That Private World To Life That Found Its First Expression Through Reading. I Really Dislike The Romantic Notion Of The Artist.

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.

Among Its Many Other Obligations, Fiction Always Has To Be Believable. Life Does Not Have To Suffer Such Constraint, And Much Of What Takes Place Is Believable Only Because It Happens.

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.

Amongst Women Concentrated On The Family, And The New Book Concentrates On A Small Community. The Dominant Units In Irish Society Are The Family And The Locality. The Idea Was That The Whole World Would Grow Out From That Small Space.