All I do is read books, really. I worry about that sometimes. I don’t seem to have a hobby or anything.

I don’t think the British carry a historical consciousness either.

I’m kind of domestic, untidily so.

I always feel freelance writers are leading a heroic life. I think that is the real writer’s life. On the other hand, it’s good to have another job. It gives you something to do.

Didn’t I seize the fire of ideas and make them leap, tear, fly, sing.

Ulysses is the greatest anti-racist text in the English language, and it challenges right from the beginning the vicious racism which lies near the foundations of the Irish Free State and of the Irish republic.

Didn't I seize the fire of ideas and make them leap, tear, fly, sing

I'm kind of domestic, untidily so.

Everyone who supports Israel is a Zionist.

Because there is a sort of amorphous, sort of darkness at the heart of things, because there is a certain kind of complacency and individualism.