Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

My parents were sixty years married.

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.

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 like naming characters.

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.

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