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John Banville

John Banville Quotes

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Famous John Banville Quotes

“You will remember this when all else fades, this moment, here, together, by this well. There will be certain days, and certain nights, you’ll feel my presence near you, hear my voice. You’ll think you have imagined it and yet, inside you, you will catch an answering cry. On April evenings, when the rain has ceased, your heart will shake, you’ll weep for nothing, pine for what’s not there. For you, this life will never be enough, there will forever be an emptiness, where once the god was all in all in you.”

ThinkingFeelsWellsHeartEnoughMomentsTogetherRememberNightCertainVoiceForeverCryRainEveningThis LifeEmptinessShakesFadesApril
Author:John Banville
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“Yes, this is what I thought adulthood would be, a kind of long indian summer, a state of tranquility, of calm incuriousness, with nothing left of the barely bearable raw immediacy of childhood, all the things solved that had puzzled me when I was small, all mysteries settled, all questions answered, and the moments dripping away, unnoticed almost, drip by golden drip, toward the final, almost unnoticed, quietus.”

KindLongStatesMomentsWould BeLeftMysteryChildhoodSummerFinalsCalmGoldenIndianAdulthoodTranquilityUnnoticedBearablePuzzledDrippingImmediacyIndian Summer
Book:The Sea
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“I have never really got used to being on this earth. Sometimes I think our presence here is due to a cosmic blunder, that we were meant for another planet altogether, with other arrangements, and other laws, and other, grimmer skies. I try to imagine it, our true place, off on the far side of the galaxy, whirling and whirling. And the ones who were meant for here, are they out there, baffled and homesick, like us? No, they would have become extinct long ago. How could they survive, these gentle earthlings, in a world that was made to contain us.”

ThinkingWorldTryingLongMadeSometimesEarthLawUsedSidesImagineSkyPlanetsDuesGentleCosmicLong AgoArrangementsGalaxyBlundersHomesickBaffledFar Side
Book:The Book of Evidence: Picador Classic
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“Writing keeps me at my desk, constantly trying to write a perfect sentence. It is a great privilege to make one's living from writing sentences. The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordinary strings of words is a marvelous thing. I couldn't ask for anything better. It's as near to godliness as I can get.”

WritingTryingLongI CanAsksPerfectCivilizationExtraordinaryPrivilegeSentencesInventionStringsDesksMarvelousGodlinessAssemblingMarvelous Things
Author:John Banville
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“In the city of flesh I travel without maps, a worried tourist: and Ottilie was a very Venice. I stumbled lost in the blue shade of her pavements. Here was a dreamy stillness, a swaying, the splash of an oar. Then, when I least expected it, suddenly I stepped out into the great square, the sunlight, and she was a flock of birds scattering with soft cries in my arms.”

LostCitiesCryArmsBirdBlueExpectedFleshWorriedMapsShadeSquaresStillnessSunlightTouristsVeniceFlocksPavementDreamyOarSwaying
Book:The Newton Letter
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