We think we're living in the present, but we're really living in the past.

- John Banville

A man is not much if he can't depend on himself, and nothing if others can't depend on him.

- John Banville

The past beats inside me like a second heart.

- John Banville

For memory, we use our imagination. We take a few strands of real time and carry them with us, then like an oyster we create a pearl around them.

- John Banville

Poetry is that magic which consists in awakening sensations with the help of a combination of sounds ... that sorcery by which ideas are necessarily …

- John Banville

I dont 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 …

- John Banville

In order really to write one has to sink deep into the self and become lost there.

- John Banville

A plot begins when somebody has something to hide.

- John Banville

If I was asked to say what was the greatest invention of human beings, I would say the sentence.

- John Banville