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

I wouldn't go out of my way to experience the indignity of middle-age just because it might be good meat for a story.

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.

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.

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 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.