The novel...creates a bemusing effect. The short story, on the other hand wakes the reader up. Not only that, it answers the primitive craving for art, the wit, paradox and beauty of shape, the longing to see a dramatic pattern and significance in our experience.

It's very important to feel foreign. I was born in England, but when I'm being a writer, everyone in England is foreign to me.

Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better.

Sooner or later, the great men turn out to be all alike. They never stop working. They never lose a minute. It is very depressing.

Some writers thrive on the contact with the commerce of success; others are corrupted by it. Perhaps, like losing one's virginity,it is not as bad (or as good) as one feared it was going to be.

A short story is. . .frequently the celebration of character at bursting point.

It is often said that in Ireland there is an excess of genius unsustained by talent; but there is talent in the tongues.