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

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.

If you're from Dublin, for example, chances are you live with your family, if you're lucky enough to, right up to the mid-20s. And most of the people I know, when they finally sort of set off on their own, they don't stray all that far.

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.

My parents were sixty years married.

When I'm writing I just think there's only the page and me and nobody else.

I'm going to sound like an old man but at my age, it's lovely doing something that you've never done before.