In more static societies, like Ireland, you can tell where a person is from by their surname, or where their grandparents are from.

Try to be accurate about stuff.

You write a book and you finish the book. That's your job done, right? You win the Booker and you have a whole new job. You have to be the thing, right? So instead of writing the story, you somehow are the story. And that I found that sort of terrible.

One of the reasons I write is I like being surprised

When I'm working, I'm not so much disciplined as obsessive. I have this feeling that I need to clear everything away and get this down.

In more static societies, like Ireland, you can tell where a person is from by their surname, or where their grandparents are from.

We have lost the art of public tenderness, these small gestures of wiping and washing; we have forgotten how abjectly the body welcomes a formal touch.