“I often ask myself whether my decision to pursue a life of scholarship – if decision is the right word – was a result of an essential poverty of the soul, or if the desiccation which I sometimes suspect is the one truly distinguishing mark of my scholarship was an inevitable consequence of that decision.”

“I often ask myself whether my decision to pursue a life of scholarship – if decision is the right word – was a result of an essential poverty of the soul, or if the desiccation which I sometimes suspect is the one truly distinguishing mark of my scholarship was an inevitable consequence of that decision.”

— John Banville