Banville, how it is

John Banville speaking at the Edinburgh Festival, quoted by The Guardian's festival blog:

There's a notion that we writers are interested in the world; that we like the peculiarities of people and collecting characters," he said. "That may be the case with second rate artists, but true artists are only interested in what's going on in their head."

He continued: "Fiction gives the illusion of showing how we live - but it is a thing in itself. Great art looks and smells like the world, that's its trick. But the work of art is always about the work of art."