John Banville Quotes

All art is to some extent shaped by what has gone before. But that is an organic process, not a conscious intention. Novels are made out of novels as much as they are out of life.

John Banville

• Life
• Art

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• Containment, as everyone will recall, was a rough plan for stopping the Communists any time they crossed a certain line dividing our half of the world from theirs.

  

  M. Stanton Evans
  • Time
  • World
  • Plan

• They're always so serious, the orchestras, you know? It's always a fun contrast of that song and the genre of music. And me.

  

  Idina Menzel
  • Music
  • Fun
  • Song

• My house looks like it was decorated by a 14-year old with a platinum American Express card.

  

  J. Michael Straczynski
  • American
  • House
  • Looks

• I never left doo wop.

  

  Aaron Neville
  • Never
  • Left

• I'm more of a guy's girl. I like having a beer in a bar, and I don't bicker or sit down and do my nails.

  

  Zoe Saldana
  • Guy
  • Girl
  • Down

• In truth, to know oneself seems to be the hardest of all things. Not only our eye, which observes external objects, does not use the sense of sight upon itself, but even our mind, which contemplates intently another's sin, is slow in the recognition of its own defects.

  

  Saint Basil
  • Mind
  • Truth
  • Eye

• Life wasn't about freeing up human souls. It was about creating obedient slaves in the hierarchical construction of the society - with God at the top, then the king and then the father.

  

  Ingmar Bergman
  • Life
  • Up
  • God

• Adding 'just kidding' doesn't make it okay to insult the Principal.

  

  Nancy Cartwright
  • Insult
  • Okay
  • Principal

• It seems to me that unless you or someone very close to you has had a bad head injury, you really can't fathom it. You have no concept of what it is all about. It was so difficult for my whole family, not just me.

  

  Barbara Mandrell
  • Family
  • Bad
  • Difficult

• I don't believe that intelligence can be reduced to a number, frankly. But I can see how doing exactly that produces a useful sorting mechanism in our society in order to separate children into categories of promising and doomed. The tests seem arbitrary and without real scientific value and yet have lasting consequences.

  

  Rachel Kushner
  • Believe
  • Children
  • Real

• Even as a 10-year-old, I remember trying to explain to my mother and stepfather how upset and frustrated a messy room made me. But they just couldn't grasp it. They wanted me to be playing with baseballs and frogs while I wanted to be scouring garage sales.

  

  Nate Berkus
  • Trying
  • Remember
  • Mother

• I'm not a quitter. All my career, I went through a lot of physical adversity, injuries. It's in my nature to be a battler.

  

  Harmon Killebrew
  • Nature
  • Career
  • Adversity

• As many of you know I travel a good bit and do not get to see my friends and family as much as I would like.

  

  Natalie Gulbis
  • Good
  • Family
  • Friends

• Searches of al Qaeda sites in Afghanistan, undertaken since American-backed forces took control there, are not known to have turned up a significant cache of nuclear materials.

  

  Barton Gellman
  • Up
  • American
  • Control

• My creativity all comes from the same place. I wear one very comfortable, large hat.

  

  Taylor Negron
  • Creativity
  • Same
  • Hat

• When you're actually making the film, you're constantly battling to maintain its integrity.

  

  Ted Kotcheff
  • You
  • Film
  • Integrity

• When you grow up in the country in France, you have small horizons.

  

  Patrick Demarchelier
  • Up
  • Country
  • Small

• I have to recognize that my voice is attached to my body, which gets tired.

  

  Verite
  • Body
  • Voice
  • Tired

• Before 9/11, I was playing a wide range of characters. I would play a lover, a cop, a father. As long as I could create the illusion of the character, the part was given to me. But after 9/11, something changed. We became the villains, the bad guys. I don't mind to play the bad guy as long as the bad guy has a base.

  

  Navid Negahban
  • Long
  • Mind
  • Character

• I think that people who get to a certain position, and then try to ferociously defend it or build on it, it's kind of a dead-end street. You see people becoming miserable that way.

  

  Viggo Mortensen
  • People
  • Kind
  • Street

• The smart thing in the art world is to have one good idea and never have another.

  

  Brian Eno Roxy Music
  • World
  • Good
  • Art

• The process I go through in the art and the architecture, I actually want it to be almost childlike. Sometimes I think it's magical.

  

  Maya Lin
  • Art
  • Architecture

• You may think life is sweet now, but when death is a heartbeat away then life becomes unbearably desirable. And when you survive, everything you do will be enhanced and filled with greater joy: the sunlight, the breeze, a good wine, a woman's lips, a child's laughter.

  

  David Gemmell
  • Life
  • Good
  • May

• All art is to some extent shaped by what has gone before. But that is an organic process, not a conscious intention. Novels are made out of novels as much as they are out of life.

  

  John Banville
  • Life
  • Art