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Ah, what heights of contempt I was capable of in those days! Now, in old age, I have largely lost that faculty, and I miss it, for it was passion of a sort.

— John Banville The Untouchable (1997)

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More quotes by John Banville

The world is a dark place, and I find it endlessly funny.

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

Ian McEwan is a very good writer; the first half of Atonement alone would ensure him a lasting place in English letters.

The past beats inside me like a second heart.

The white May blossom swooned slowly into the open mouth of the grave.

If they give me the bloody prize, why can't they say nice things about me?

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All the world's a stage,
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From now on, everything in life will appear blurry to me. What’s the point of wiping my glasses when my vision has already left me?"

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The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.

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Older people are most beautiful when they have what is lacking in the young: poise, erudition, wisdom, phronesis, and this post-heroic absence of agitation.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Banville (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.