John Banville Quotes

I hate the telephone. I think the lowest circle of hell is reserved for Alexander Graham Bell.

I would imagine that if you could understand Morse code, a tap dancer would drive you crazy.

The computer, the noise of the computer feels like impatience. It's sort of the sound of impatience to me.

When you hear extraneous noise, they are bored in some way, so it makes me upset. Even coughing, I find, is passive-aggressive, usually.

Look, maybe I'm just not good at multi-tasking and am, therefore, jealous of those of you who can get in a workout while yammering on your cell phone, but for the love of all that is good and pure, shut your yap!

I don't like telephones.

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.

Quit shouting those rerun songs at me.

I actually find prank CDs pretty annoying.

If the sound of happy children is grating on your ears, I don't think it's the children who need to be adjusted.

Will you please shut the hell up!?

So that's the telephone? They ring, and you run.

Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?

Stupid human voices always ruining everything.

Hello Angel,'Michael rumbled, and leaned over to give the woman a kiss on the cheek. She accepted it with all the loving tolerance of a Komodo dragon. 'Don't you hello angel me. Do you know what I had to go through to find a baby-sitter, get all the way out here, get the money together and then get the sword back for you?

After some while Bilbo became impatient. "Well, what is it?" he said. "The answer's not a kettle boiling over, as you seem to think by the noise you are making.

I need noise and interruptions and irritation: irritation and discomfort are a great starter. The loneliness of doing it any other way would kill me.

Look guys, if you're just going to stare at me, I'm going to bed!

I rode an elevator with a guy who was whistling the tune of 'this is the song that never ends'. Putting that on me? Come on dude.

Why don't you make a contibution to my sanity, and do the one thing you never seem to be able to do... SHUT UP!!!

Turn down the porn soundtrack! Trying to concentrate here!-Shane

Babies don't need a vacation. But I still see them at the beach. It pisses me off.

[On the ringing of her doorbell or telephone:] What fresh hell is this?

The great advantage [the telephone] possesses over every other form of electrical apparatus consists in the fact that it requires no skill to operate the instrument.

If something or someone's really bugging you, just sit on it. Just sit on it.