213 Quotes by John Banville

I shall be delivered, like a noble closing speech. I shall be, in a word, said.

When I finish a sentence, after much labor, it’s finished. A certain point comes at which you can’t do any more work on it because you know it will kill the sentence.

Belief is hard, and the abyss is always there, under one’s feet.

If they give me the bloody prize, why can’t they say nice things about me?

The past, I mean the real past, matters less than we pretend.

We artists love to talk tough, but we’re just as sentimental as everyone else when it comes down to it.

I was always a distinct no-one, whose fiercest wish was to be an indistinct someone.

I don’t own a Kindle, no. I love books, they are beautiful objects.

This, I told myself, this is the way I shall be condemned to pass my days, turning over words, stray lines, fragments of memory, to see what might be lurking underneath them, as if they were so many flat stones, while I steadily faded.