All artists dream of a silence which they must enter, as some creatures return to the sea to spawn.

People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don't admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It's the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.

Coffee, unless it is very good and made by somebody else, is pretty intolerable at any time.

That's how vile i am! I live Ireland, I breathe Ireland, and Christ how I loathe it, I wish I were a bloody Scot, that's how bloody awful it is being Irish!

Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is.

Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!

... half the world starves. What a planet. And the eating, if you're lucky enough to do any. Stuffing pieces of dead animals into a hole in your face. Then munch, munch, munch. If there's anybody watching, they must be dying of laughter.