“Ireland is a series of stories that have been told to us, starting with the Iris…” — Anne Enright

There's no such thing as a life that is not normal, or, there's no such thing as a life that is not abnormal. We all have amazing lives; we all have very dull lives.

You write a book and you finish the book. That's your job done, right? You win the Booker and you have a whole new job. You have to be the thing, right? So instead of writing the story, you somehow are the story. And that I found that sort of terrible.

I became a full-time writer in 1993 and have been very happy, insofar as anybody is, since.

If you can just actually let the character be for a bit, then you get the right sense.