My Father Was Very Outwardly Religious.

I Love The Description Of Gothic Churches Before The Printed Word, That They Were The Bibles Of The Poor.

The Imagination Demands That Life Be Told Slant Because Of Its Need Of Distance.

I Used To Take Five Or Six Books Away And Bring Five Or Six Books Back. Nobody Gave Me Direction Or Advice And I Read Much In The Way That A Boy Might Watch Television.

I Belong To The Middle Class That Grew Up Very Influenced By The Catholic Church. The People Of The Novel Are From A More Pagan And Practical World In Which The Christianity Is Just A Veneer.

The Way I See It Is That All The Ol' Guff About Being Irish Is A Kind Of Nonsense. I Mean, I Couldn't Be Anything Else No Matter What I Tried To Be. I Couldn't Be Chinese Or Japanese.