Quotes from Dermot Healy

Jesus. I had a dream last night too. You had. I dreamt that my Grandma had just died yesterday. Dear God. And she had died long before I was born. He looked at me with astounded eyes, and felt his neck, and then he patted my knee. Aisy son, he said. Why did I dream her? Because you never met her. The dead you never met die a little bit every day in your head.

and he suddenly opened his eyes and stared straight ahead into an empty space till slowly we returned into view. I can make small talk, he said slowly, I can do that but out of the corner of my eye I can see the dark approaching.

It's in a neighbor's house fiction begins.

Truth is the lie you once told returning to haunt you

There is nothing more awkward to look at, said Joejoe, than peasants in suits. They don't fit into them.

Die größte Freude ist die, aus verschiedenen Sprachen auswählen zu können, was den Inhalt des Geistes am besten ausdrückt.

Der größte Fehler ist der, einen Mann ausschließlich als einen Mann zu behandeln oder eine Frau nur als eine Frau, denn sie alle haben Zugang zu vielen Rollen...

There isn't any distinction between a reader and a writer - reading is so much a part of it.

I write mostly in my office in the shed outside at home, but it can get very cold. I write best on the train, among people. As a writer you spend so much time away from people.

When I was 14 or 15, our teacher introduced us to Dickens' 'A Tale of Two Cities.' It was just for entertainment - we read it aloud - and all of a sudden it became a treasure.