213 Quotes by John Banville

His years as a policeman had taught him to be not fearless, only to disregard the fact of being afraid.

These things that were between us, these and a myriad others, a myriad myriad, these remain of her, but what will become of them when I am gone, I who am their repository and sole preserver?

I live in Dublin, God knows why. There are greatly more congenial places I could have settled in – Italy, France, Manhattan – but I like the climate here, and Irish light seems to be essential for me and for my writing.

How deceptively light they are, the truly decisive steps we take in life.

He made the mistake of imagining that his possessions were a measure of his own worth, and strutted and crowed, parading his things like a schoolboy with a champion catapult.

Dogs are dim creatures, do not speak to me of their good sense – have you ever heard of a team of tomcats hauling a sled across the frozen wastes?

I make my voyage out, far, far out, to the very brim, where a disc of water shimmers like molten coin against a coin-colored sky, and everything lifts, and sky and water merge invisibly. that is where I seem to the most at ease now, on the far, pale margin of things. If I can call it ease. If I can call it being.

How strange a thing it was to be here, animate and conscious, on this ball of mud and brine as it whirled through the illimitable depths of space.

I don’t make a distinction between men and women. To me they are just people.