I read Nietzsche when I was a teenager and then I went back to reading him when I was in my thirties, and his voice spoke directly to me. Nietzsche is such a superb literary artist.
John BanvilleThese days I must take the world in small and carefully measured doses. It is a sort of homeopathic cure I am undergoing, though I am not certain what this cure is meant to mend. Perhaps I am learning to live amongst the living again. Practising, I mean. But no, that is not it. Being here is just a way of not being anywhere.
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 BanvilleWith the crime novels, its delightful to have protagonists I can revisit in book after book. Its like having a fictitious family.
John BanvilleYou will remember this when all else fades, this moment, here, together, by this well. There will be certain days, and certain nights, youโll feel my presence near you, hear my voice. Youโll think you have imagined it and yet, inside you, you will catch an answering cry. On April evenings, when the rain has ceased, your heart will shake, youโll weep for nothing, pine for whatโs not there. For you, this life will never be enough, there will forever be an emptiness, where once the god was all in all in you.
John Banville