It's a big con job. We have sold the myth of Dublin as a sexy place incredibly well; because it is a dreary little dump most of the time.

Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's part of any endeavour, not just writing.

If you are a writer you're at home, which means you're out of touch. You have to make excuses to get out there and look at how the world is changing.

I tend to plan as I write. And I want to leave myself open and the character open to keep on going until it seems to be the time to stop.

To claim that music is more important than oxygen would be trite and sentimental. It would also be true.

When I was a kid, if you didn't speak Irish, you really wanted to. And you played Gaelic games and you didn't pay any attention to what was happening in the outside world, because really, the - Ireland was the center of the universe. And I don't think that's the case anymore, although, admittedly, it is the center of the universe.

I'm not recognised that much. I'm just a bald man in glasses and there's a rash of them in Dublin. It'd be different if I had a mohican.