“I shall strip away layer after layer of grime -- the toffee-colored varnish and caked soot left by a lifetime of dissembling -- until I come to the very thing itself and know it for what it is. My soul. My self.” KnowsSoulSelfLeftLifetimeMy SoulLayersGrimeToffee Author:John Banville
“I dont know if there is a personal identity. We all imagine that we are absolute individuals. But when we begin to look for where this individuality resides, its very difficult to find.” IfsKnowsLooksIndividualDifficultImagineIdentityAbsolutesIndividualityImagine ThatPersonal Identity Author:John Banville
“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.” KnowsWritingLightSeemsEssentialsClimateFranceGod KnowsManhattanDublin Author:John Banville
“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.” KnowsCertainLaborSentencesFinished Author:John Banville
“All one wants to do is make a small, finished, polished, burnished, beautiful object . . . I mean, that's all one wants to do. One has nothing to say about the world, or society, or morals or politics or anything else. One just wants to get the damn thing done, you know? Kafka had it right when he said that the artist is the man who has nothing to say. It's true. You get the thing done, but you don't actually have anything to communicate, apart from the object itself.” KnowsMenWorldWantMeanSaidDoneBeautifulArtistMoralObjectsHe ManCommunicateFinishedDamnThings DonePolishedTrue YouDamn ThingsBeautiful Objects Author:John Banville
“All a work of art can do is present the surface. I can't know the insides of people. I know very little about the inside of myself.” PeopleKnowsLittlesArtI CanCan DoSurfaceWorks Of Art Author:John Banville
“There are times, they occur with increasing frequency nowadays, when I seem to know nothing, when everything I know seems to have fallen out of my mind like a shower of rain, and I am gripped for a moment in paralysed dismay, waiting for it all to come back but with no certainty that it will.” KnowsMindMomentsSeemsWaitingRainCertaintyFallenShowersFrequencyOf My MindDismay Author:John Banville
“He knows that after him everything will continue on much as before, except that there will be a minuscule absence, a barely detective gap in the so-called grand scheme, one unit fewer now. Or not even that, not even an empty space where he once was, for all will rush immediately to fill that vacuum. Pft. Gone. Recollections of him will remain in the minds of others for a while, but presently those others too will die and his few relics with them. And then all will be dark.” KnowsMindDiesFearDarkSpaceGoneEmptyAbsenceGapsFewerSchemesUnitsDetectivesVacuumsRecollectionEmpty SpaceRelics Author:John Banville
