John Banville Quotes

Perhaps one would be wise when young even to avoid thinking of oneself as a writer - for there's something a little stopped and satisfied, too healthy, in that. Better to think of writing, of what one does as an activity, rather than an identity - to write, I write; we write; to keep the calling a verb rather than a noun; to keep working at the thing, at all hours, in all places, so that your life does not become a pose, a pornography of wishing.

[On writing:] The most egotistic of occupations, and the most gratifying while it lasts.

The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness.

I feel very lucky that when I'm burnt out of acting I take to the pen and I write something I want to direct.

It does seem that a fantasy, working out in its own terms, stretching you beyond the normal concerns of your own life, gains you a peculiar charge of energy which inexplicably enriches you. At least, this is my ideal of a fantasy, and I am always trying to write it.

I've had frustrated storytelling juices that have been lying dormant for a long time, and I guess the documentary was a way of me telling a story that I felt most qualified to tell. And I loved it, and I'd love to do something else someday, probably more narrative-based. But I'm in no rush.

I started to write songs. And I started to like what I was writing. I think it's a new way for me to express things that are closer to myself than when I play a role, because, of course, it's really not me. I'm finding a new way. I don't know what it's going to be. But I know that I will need to give it to people one day.

Being a creative person. It's so much more rewarding when you find things on your own, to live whatever the writers are writing or to display what the director is looking for. You are the thing that everybody uses to get the story out.

I could compose and write music and get to share it with the masses and the people around the world and to have them to receive it so beautifully - I love that.

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.

There's very little of the intentional about the business of writing poetry, as least as far as I can see.

I feel very rich when I have time to write and very poor when I get a regular paycheck and no time at my real work.

I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.

Writing is a holy chore.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to. It's like trying to write a song, making tiny tweaks, reading it out loud, shifting things to make it sound a certain way... Sometimes it feels like digging out of a hole, but sometimes it feels like flying. When it's working and the rhythm's there, it does feel like magic to me.

I go on writing so that I will always have something to read.

My dream many years ago would've been to continue to write and record songs in record/album form for years to come, but now records aren't what they were then - and so it doesn't actually feel very good to make a record of songs.

All I'm about is just the pen.

Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence.

I always wanted to be a fashion designer so I just have to remember that as long as I'm doing it I'm living the dream.

The pleasures of writing correspond exactly to the pleasures of reading

He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.

Writing poetry is the only form of literary labour which gives me entire satisfaction.

If you love writing or making music or blogging or any sort of performing art, then do it. Do it with everything you've got. Just don't plan on using it as a shortcut to making a living.

I find myself absolutely fulfilled when I have written a poem, when I'm writing one. Having written one, then you fall away very rapidly from having been a poet to becoming a sort of poet in rest, which isn't the same thing at all. But I think the actual experience of writing a poem is a magnificent one.