(b. 1945–)
Irish novelist and screenwriter
John Banville
Occasionally I will leave behind a sentence that I know is missing a word, and I’ll go back to it later. I wrote a sentence like that yesterday. A man is talking about his wife, who’s a singer. She has just woken up in the morning, and he says, “Even half asleep like this, she sounded a true, dark note, a thrilling…” I put in “cadence,” but I know it’s not the right word—so the sentence is just sitting there, waiting for me to find the right, the exact, the only word.
“The Art of Fiction No. 200,” interviewed by Belinda McKeon, in Issue 188 of The Paris Review, 2009.
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.
“The Art of Fiction No. 200,” interviewed by Belinda McKeon, in Issue 188 of The Paris Review, 2009.
It’s only now and then, maybe once every three or four days, that I manage to write a sentence in which I hear that wonderful harmonic chime that you get when, say, you flick the edge of a wine glass with a fingernail. That’s what keeps me going.
“The Art of Fiction No. 200,” interviewed by Belinda McKeon, in Issue 188 of The Paris Review, 2009.
The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordinary strings of words is a marvelous thing. I couldn’t ask for anything better. It’s as near to godliness as I can get.
“The Art of Fiction No. 200,” interviewed by Belinda McKeon, in Issue 188 of The Paris Review, 2009.