Irish Novelist Quotes

I nearly went fucking crazy crazy. Notes [from a Coma] marked a sort of natural breakdown with Jonathan Cape. The book got a good critical response but it didn't too well. So publishers look at you then and think, okay, he writes good books but... If you have that experimental twist, you make things hard for yourself. So for those five years, I couldn't give my work away. It was tough on me and for people around me. But as my wife Maeve said to me, it isn't my job to get published... it is my job to write.

The Greeks were the first boxers. Pugilism appears to have been one of the earliest distinctions in play and exercise that appeared between the Hellenes and their Asiatic fathers. The unarmed personal encounter was indicative of a sturdier manhood.

John Boyle O'Reilly

How many chapters have been written about love verses - and how many more might be written! - might, would, could, should, or ought to be written! - I will venture to say, will be written!

Temperamentally, the writer exists on happenings, on contacts, conflicts, action and reaction, speed, pressure, tension. Were he acontemplative purely, he would not write.

Elizabeth Bowen