The problem with being Irish... is having 'Riverdance' on your back. It's a burden at times.

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.

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

Most working days I can be at my desk for nine hours a day.

My parents were sixty years married.

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.

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.