"I rang up this publisher and they asked me what I was doing at the time. I told them I was a house-painter, so first of all they had me come round and paint the place. Only later did they consider my work and Banished Misfortune was published."

Dermot Healy Literature See all quotes by Dermot Healy →

React to this quote

More by Dermot Healy

“I like the idea of stopping mid-sentence, like Graham Greene.”

“I know writing is what I do but I still don't see myself as one.”

“I often find poems hand written in old abandoned notebooks.”

“taught me a lot about the normal and the abnormal, and the distance between them. He's out there by himself. You get the jump in the feet when you read certain passages by him. That's the mark of truly great writing. It gives you the jump in the feet.”

“I'm no good at dinner parties. I feel very uneasy at them.”

“The Bible has entered much of my work as have Latin and Greek mythology and verse.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Miserable Orpheus who, turning to lose his Eurydice, beholds her for the first time as well as the last."

— Cyril Connolly

Literature1903–1974

#time

"All sense of dialectics is lost when someone believes that today’s economy is identical to the economy 50 or 100 or 150 years ago, or that it is identical to the one in Lenin’s day or to the time when…"

— Fidel Castro

Politics1926–2016

#time

"However, is this what best serves our world today? I submit that those aspects of our monetary system that met the objectives of another time and age are now inadequate for the challenges facing us du…"

— Bernard Lietaer

Economics1942–2019

#time

"I’m telling you, the Devil is very smart. He’s not going to come out with the horns and the tail. He’s going to come in as the slickest car salesman you ever saw – and I’ve seen some pretty slick past…"

— Alice Cooper

Music1948

#time