I mean I think that's a fact and I think that we had a very peculiar type of Catholic Church here in that it was a fortress Church.

I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.

I used to take five or six books away and bring five or six books back. Nobody gave me direction or advice and I read much in the way that a boy might watch television.

Amongst Women concentrated on the family, and the new book concentrates on a small community. The dominant units in Irish society are the family and the locality. The idea was that the whole world would grow out from that small space.

I think that each of us inhabits a private world that others cannot see. The only difference between the writer and the reader is that the writer is able to dramatise that private world.

I think technique can be taught but I think the only way to learn to write is to read, and I see writing and reading as completely related. One almost couldn't exist without the other.

Yes, though I have nothing but gratitude for my upbringing in the church.