A Quote by John Banville

I sometimes think that I might be slightly autistic. There might be a syndrome that hasn't been named. I don't seem to see the world in the same way that most people I know see it. They don't seem to be baffled by it.
Animals are like autistic savants. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that animals might actually be autistic savants. Animals have special talents normal people don't, the same way autistic people have special talents normal people don't; and at least some animals have special forms of genius normal people don't, the same way some autistic savants have special forms of genius. I think most of the time animal genius probably happens for the same reason autistic genius does: a difference in the brain autistic people share with animals.
I got tired of doing battle with people thinking I was a little weird because I wasn't in a band making happy, stilted music. The only people who really seem weird to me are people who think they're normal. People who think it's possible to be normal just by doing the same things that most people do. Is there a most people? I don't know. Television makes it seem like there is, but I think that might just be television.
My comfort wasn't the most important thing - my getting through to the other side of difficult feelings was. However long it might seem to take, and however unfair it might seem, it was my job to do it.
Certain books seem to be written, not that we might learn from them, but in order that we might see how much the author knows.
I think the reason that people fall in love with Sandra Bullock is that she doesn't seem to know it in the same way. She doesn't seem to know it in a way that other gorgeous people maybe would. I think that's what makes her so accessible.
There's a book called Mummy and the people actually seem to have become addicted to mummy dust. And mummy dust was somehow made from people who've died of the most loathsome diseases. It's too bad that [David] Cronenberg didn't see this book, see I only saw it after the film was made. It might have been of interest to him.
To see talented people in roles that others might not see them in, to see how they might fit in the puzzle of the cast, has always been something that I've been good at. I think that if you look at the successes of my films and start to peel them back, there's usually a really smart casting decision that has gone into that success.
That's really the essence of what any fiction writer does. Some of it is research-based, but most of it is a really long-term, imaginative, empathetic effort to see the world the way someone whose experiences remote from yours might see it. Not every writer works that way; some writers make a wonderful career out of writing books that adhere very closely to how they view the world. The further I go with this, the more interested I get in trying to imagine my way into other perspectives that at first seem foreign to me.
I live in Vegas, and I see people by the side of the road with cardboard signs who seem like they might have tried that spending their way out of debt thing.
Sometimes you meet someone, and they seem great, they seem exactly what you're thinking of for the role, and then you put a camera on them, and they freeze. And other people come to life with the camera on them. I haven't discovered any reliable predictor for that; I think you just have to try it and see what happens. And, you know, sometimes the people who freeze, if you find the right magic word to say to them, you can unlock them.
I do think that maybe, even subconsciously, a lot of parents in the West are wondering, have we gone too far in the direction of coddling and protecting - you know, you see kids, sometimes that seem very rude and disrespectful. And the more important thing is they don't seem that happy.
Our parents are the most invaluable teachers we have, and no matter how alien it might seem to ask them to enter your 'work' world, you might just be surprised what comes out of it.
It's only a drawback in the States, where most people seem to have no real interest in other countries and the notion of a novel which might offer insight into life in the UK doesn't seem to appeal very widely.
I'd say people are victims of circumstances and they're limited to the opportunities that they see. Even though there might be more opportunities, you might not see them. You might just think, "I don't have any options." You usually go to the dark side, in that situation.
People seem generally happy to see their favorite world come to life, even if it it slightly changed to fit storytelling for television.
What you think you see and what you think a guy did wrong, maybe he did right. Or you see a touchdown pass, but the guy might've been wrong. Something crazy might have happened. You don't know that. That's the toughest thing when it comes to judging play on a football field.
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