For 10 or 11 years, I had my kids, I wrote four or five books, and I was working all the damn time.

I think young children in the Western middle classes are objects of incredible anxiety.

People do not change, they are merely revealed.

And, in fact, this is the tale that I would love to write: history is such a romantic place, with its jarveys and urchins and side-buttoned boots. If it would just stay still, I think, and settle down. If it would just stop sliding around in my head.

I work at the sentences. Many of the things people find distinctive about my writing, I think of as natural.

If you grow up in Ireland and read books then you really are obliged to attempt your own some time. It is not exactly a choice. I still don't know if I am a writer. Believe me, there are days when I have my doubts.

When you find yourself alone, or in a transition, you dream more. These are also the times when you read books.