Time Pieces Quotes

“Where did this absurd rule come from, and why did we so meekly obey it? Under a tyrannical regime--and the Ireland of those days was a spiritual tyranny--the populace becomes so cowed that it does the state's work for it voluntarily. And as every tyrant knows, a people's own self-censorship is the kind that works best. In the 1990s, when revelations of clerical sexual abuse and the Catholic Church's cover-ups put an end to its hegemony almost overnight, my generation scratched its head and asked, in voices trembling with incredulity, 'How could we let them get away with it for so long?' But the question, of course, contained its own answer: We let them get away with it. Power is more often surrendered than seized.”
― John Banville, Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir

“I am like the Census,” he said, “broken down by age, sex and religion.”
― John Banville, Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir

“... I am old now, or oldening ...”
― John Banville, Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir

“... all frail sufferers from the same disease that affected me, all ailing bibliomanes being treated for addiction, as in a literary methadone clinic...”
― John Banville, Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir

“We do not grow up; all we do is grow dull.”
― John Banville, Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir

“Let us say, the present is where we live, while the past is where we dream.”
― John Banville, Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir

“It is in the forms of the living that the dead most convincingly haunt us.”
― John Banville, Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir