John Banville Quotes
We would probably claim Kafka as an Irish writer. His tone of voice is certainly quite Irish: that sense of melancholy, that sense of strangeness and of being a stranger in the world. I think that we empathise with that very much indeed.
Quotes to Explore
-
Women often have a great need to portray themselves as sympathetic and pleasing, but we're also dark people with dark thoughts.
-
If the 2016 election is any indication, every four years, millions more Americans will continue backing away from their own parties to choose a third party instead.
-
A leader is admired, a boss is feared.
-
While children are struggling to be unique, the world around them is trying all means to make them look like everybody else.
-
One of the dreams of Zionism was to be a bridge. Instead, we are creating exclusion between the East and the West instead of creating bridges; we are contributing to the conflict between East and West by our stupid desire to have more.
-
We advance on our journey only when we face our goal, when we are confident and believe we are going to win out.
-
We need not worry so much about what man descends from - it's what he descends to that shames the human race.
-
The Soviet Union was a very useful ally in the defeat of Nazi Germany.
-
The shelf life of the average trade book is somewhere between milk and yogurt.
-
If you took ISIS' oil, that would not stop them. It's not their only source of revenue. It would be a setback, but it would not stop them.
-
Those market researchers... are playing games with you and me and with this entire country. Their so-called samples of opinion are no more accurate or reliable than my grandmother's big toe was when it came to predicting the weather.
-
Children seem naturally drawn to poetry - it's some combination of the rhyme, rhythm, and the words themselves.
-
Madonna and I are very different. Just saying. We're very different. I wouldn't make that comparison at all, and I don't mean to disrespect Madonna: she's a nice lady, and she's had a fantastic, huge career - biggest pop star of all time.
-
One of the main lessons I have learned during my five years as Secretary-General is that broad partnerships are the key to solving broad challenges. When governments, the United Nations, businesses, philanthropies and civil society work hand-in-hand, we can achieve great things.
-
Fundamentalism - of any variety - is a form of illiteracy, in that it asserts that it is necessary to read only one book.
-
There are lots of things I am not good at. I'm not that good a singer. And I'm a good dad but a lousy husband because I work far too much and am not at home as much as I would like.
-
If I sit down to write a young-adult novel, then I'm going to write either to the punch-pulling expectation of what I can't do, or I'm going to go the other way and think about what can I sneak in to be 'down with the kids' - which would be excruciating.
-
Musical theater is an American genre. It started really, in America, as a combination of jazz and operetta; most of the great musical theater writers in the golden era are American. I think that to do a musical is a very American thing to me.
-
I know there are lots of positives in the evolution of technology, but I also think it will be responsible for the end of a unique character, of a specific kind of geographical culture. The world is getting so small, and mass production is getting so big. Everything is in danger of becoming the same.
-
We won '98, '99 and 2000. I don't think you'll see that again. I really don't believe you'll see a team win three World Series in a row. Not that we were so much better than everybody else, but that's how hard it is to even win one World Series.
-
People may take a job for more money, but they often leave it for more recognition.
-
I'm an idealist without illusions.
-
The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren't in a very good mood.
-
We would probably claim Kafka as an Irish writer. His tone of voice is certainly quite Irish: that sense of melancholy, that sense of strangeness and of being a stranger in the world. I think that we empathise with that very much indeed.
