In the city of flesh I travel without maps, a worried tourist: and Ottilie was a very Venice. I stumbled lost in the blue shade of her pavements. Here was a dreamy stillness, a swaying, the splash of an oar. Then, when I least expected it, suddenly I stepped out into the great square, the sunlight, and she was a flock of birds scattering with soft cries in my arms.
John BanvilleA man is not much if he can't depend on himself, and nothing if others can't depend on him.
John BanvilleHow flat all sounds are at the seaside, flat and yet emphatic, like the sound of gunshots heard at a distance.
John BanvilleHappiness was different in childhood. It was so much then a matter simply of accumulation, of taking things - new experiences, new emotions - and applying them like so many polished tiles to what would someday be the marvellously finished pavilion of the self.
John Banville