John Banville Work Quotations

My work is frequently described as cold, which is baffling, since it seems to me embarrassingly, shame-makingly, scandalously warm. I find my work filled with sentiment, and I can't imagine why people find it cold.

When I say I don't like my own work, that doesn't mean it isn't better than everyone else's.

Office life is very, very strange. It's like no other way of living. You have an intimacy with people who you work with in the office, yet if you meet them on the streets, you both look the other way because you're embarrassed.

How I envy writers who can work on aeroplanes or in hotel rooms. On the run I can produce an article or a book review, or even a film script, but for fiction I must have my own desk, my own wall with my own postcards pinned to it, and my own window not to look out of.

In my books you have to concentrate, but I work hard to make it that, when you do, the rewards are quite high.