I wasn't even aware of the Year of the Family. I couldn't give a toss. These things - the year of the family, the year of the three-legged dog. I think it's all trash.

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

I see people in terms of dialogue and I believe that people are their talk.

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.

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.

It's hard for me to measure them, or to assess my books because I'm so close to them.

You know people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it.