John Banville Quotes

I love you garb’d but naked, more!

You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.

Ironic philosophies produce passionate works.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.

I really didn't say everything I said.

I am my therapist, and I analyze what's happening and if I'm being hurt in the process. The result is songs that are very emotional, very deep, although I try to write them generally so they won't alienate the listener.

I am a simple man, though my wife says I am complicated. I'll trust her on that one.

I want to play with my heart.

Yelling between people in love is normal.

People who write happy songs are often unhappy.

In love we often doubt what we most believe.

I found in my writing that I could express emotions that, as an everyday person, I have no interest in expressing: these strange things that girls talk about called feelings.

I just write about how I'm feeling at the time. If I feel like being cheeky and a bit straight up and a bit aggressive, you'll hear that in my music. If I feel like being very vulnerable and opening up about something personal, you'll hear that, too.

I am very uncomfortable being romantic. I can be funny; I can be all over the place. I can be anything but romantic.

We're always observing, and we're cautious people. We really want attention, but at the same time, we're ashamed of wanting attention. All those bizarre qualities of being outside are necessary for being a writer.

I try to talk openly from how I feel. People may not agree with it. It may sound foreign to them. That's an uncomfortable position for some people, to be sentimental, nostalgic - it's all kind of the same.

I make my living talking about serious subject matter, but I'm a weirdo.

I don’t even know what I’m writing, I have no idea, I don’t know anything, and I’m not reading over it, and I’m not correcting my style, and I’m writing just for the sake of writing, just for the sake of writing more to you… My precious, my darling, my dearest!

If he touched her, he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win.

Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one's own pleasure is shared.

I am skeptical in principle, gullible in practice.

So I have talked with Betsey and Betsey has talked with me, And we have agreed together that we can't never agree

Cruel men cry easily at the cinema.

Irony is based on insecurity; people like to not like things because they don't understand them.

You cannot study Pleasure in the moment of the nuptial embrace, nor repentance while repenting, nor analyze the nature of humour while roaring with laughter.