I did think of becoming a priest quite late on, when other boys were thinking of knocking over fences and going out with girls. I would have made a very good bishop: nice housekeeper, nice clothes - god, the clothes.

Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.

I think you can get a sort of intensity and an edginess offering nine stories in a book. Competing versions of things.

The old Victorian laws against homosexuality were still on the statute books until the early 1990s. As a gay man living in Ireland, I and people like me found it easy to feel less than citizens.

“One Minus One’”and “Barcelona, 1975” are more or less autobiographical.

I wrote every day between the ages of 12 and 20 when I stopped because I went to Barcelona, where life was too exciting to write.

Anyone who works in the arts knows, if you're writing a novel or a play or anything, you have to be ready for someone to say, 'Your time is up.'