I Read All The Time.

Yes, But Also One Of The Problems For A Novelist In Ireland Is The Fact That There Are No Formal Manners. I Mean Some People Have Beautiful Manners But There's No Kind Of Agreed Form Of Manners.

I Think There's A Great Difference In Consciousness In That Same Way In That When We're Young We Read Books For The Story, For The Excitement Of The Story - And There Comes A Time When You Realise That All Stories Are More Or Less The Same Story.

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.

I Love The Description Of Gothic Churches Before The Printed Word, That They Were The Bibles Of The Poor.

I've Never Written Anything That Hasn't Been In My Mind For A Long Time - Seven Or Eight Years.