I don't know if there is a personal identity. We all imagine that we are absolute individuals. But when we begin to look for where this individuality resides, it's very difficult to find.
Interpretation
The quote questions the concept of personal identity and individuality.
John Banville reflects on the complexity of personal identity, suggesting that while we perceive ourselves as distinct individuals, the search for the essence of this individuality is elusive. This contemplation invites readers to think deeply about what it means to be an individual and whether such a defined self truly exists or is merely an illusion we construct.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of self in psychology class.
Why does the past seem so magical, so fraught, so luminous? At the time it was just, ugh, another boring bloody day. But, to look back on, it's a day full of miracles and light and extraordinary events. Why is this? What process do we apply to the past, to give it this vividness? I don't know.
Happiness was different in childhood. It was so much then a matter simply of accumulation, of taking things - new experiences, new emotions - and applying them like so many polished tiles to what would someday be the marvellously finished pavilion of the self.
Writing keeps me at my desk, constantly trying to write a perfect sentence. It is a great privilege to make one's living from writing sentences. The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordinary strings of words is a marvelous thing. I couldn't ask for anything better. It's as near to godliness as I can get.
I know some of my memories are made up and they are far more powerful than the things that actually happened. For example, I always remember my brother posting me a copy of 'Dubliners' from Africa, but he says he never did.
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.
All novels must be autobiographical because I am the only material that I know. All of the characters are me. But at the same time, a novel is never autobiographical even if it describes the life of the author. Literary writing is a completely different medium.
In almost all sciences the fundamental knowledge is either found in earliest times or is still being sought.
There is no man who desires as passionately as a Russian. If we could imprison a Russian desire beneath a fortress, that fortress would explode.
Two conflicting forces cannot exist in one human heart. When doubt reigns, faith cannot abide. Where hatred rules, love is crowded out. Where selfishness rules, there love cannot dwell. When worry is present, trust cannot crowd its way in.
Then he reflected that reality does not usually coincide with our anticipation of it; with a logic of his own he inferred that to forsee a circumstantial detail is to prevent its happening. Trusting in this weak magic, he invented, so that they would not happen, the most gruesome details.
And I think, on the other end, there were actors who were not as good as I was, perhaps who could have hung in too, but began to blame everything on race.
In a man devoted to knowledge, pity seems almost ridiculous, like delicate hands on a cyclops.
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