I became a full-time writer in 1993 and have been very happy, insofar as anybody is, since.

I do not think we remember our family in any real sense. We live in them instead

People think motherhood involves a lot of domestic labor, and it doesn't. It involves being nice to your children as often as possible. That's part of my trick. I don't have that anxiety about meeting their needs.

I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. The Gathering did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time.

I'm very keenly aware that there aren't very many women writing literary fiction in Ireland and so that gives me a sense that what I say matters, in some small way.

A drinker does not exist. Whatever they say, it is just the drink talking.

I think it’s very important to write a demythologized woman character. My characters are flawed. They are no better than they should be.