“For me, a line has to sing before it does anything else. The great thrill is when a sentence that starts out being completely plain suddenly begins to sing, rising far above itself and above any expectation I might have had for it. That's what keeps me going on those dark December days when I think about how I could be living instead of writing.”

— John Banville

John Banville, The Art of Fiction No. 200 (2009)

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John Banville 97

Irish writer 1945

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