John Banville Quotes

Long ago, long ago. The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.

...the air so still it aches like the place where the tooth was on the morning after you’ve been to the dentist or aches like your heart in the bosom when you stand on the street corner waiting for the light to change and happen to recollect how things once were and how they might have been yet if what happened had not happened.

Were it not better to forget than to remember and regret?

There will be no song on our lips if there be no anguish in our hearts.

The pain of the flesh is naught to that of the heart

So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

She did not want to talk of her sorrow, but with that sorrow in her heart she could not talk of outside matters.

Memory is a wonderful thing if you don't have to deal with the past.

Regret, already sogging me down, burst its dam. It seeped into my legs, it pooled in my heart.

Your past is your shadow. It has form but no substance, except in the places you allow it to touch you. (

The cloak of the past is cut from patches of feeling ,and sewn with rebus threads.Most of the time , the best we can do is wrap it around ourselves for comfort or drag it behind us as we struggle to go on .

I keep remembering — I keep remembering. My heart has no pity on me.

Sorrow lies like a heartbeat behind everything I have written.

Our past is who we are, and death is one of our experiences. I lost my husband a long time ago, but it's always yesterday.

How little remains of the man I once was, save the memory of him! But remembering is only a new form of suffering.

Away from the bright motion of the party, she carried her sadness like a dark stone clenched in her palm.

Memory is the only friend of grief.

We each have been betrayed. Let yourself picture and remember the many ways this is true. Feel the sorrow you have carried from this past. Now sense that you can release this burden of pain by gradually extending forgiveness as your heart is ready.

I was right when I said I'd never look back. It hurts too much, it drags at your heart till you can't ever do anything else except look back.

Joy and sorrow are both my perpetual companions, but the joy is called Past and the sorrow Present.

we all carry the Houses of our Youth inside, and our Parents, too, grown small enough to fit within our Hearts.

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me; Is't not enough to torture me alone, But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?

The windows, the starving windows that drive the trees like nails into my heart.

I know nothing and my heart aches