Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyleis an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. He is the author of ten novels for adults, eight books for children, seven plays and screenplays, and dozens of short stories. Several of his books have been made into films, beginning with The Commitments in 1991. Doyle's work is set primarily in Ireland, especially working-class Dublin, and is notable for its heavy use of dialogue written in slang and Irish English dialect. Doyle was awarded the Booker Prize in 1993 for...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth8 May 1958
books books-and-reading doubt good moved people putting top written
Ulysses could have done with a good editor. You know people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it.
character fiction glorious individual literary matter room screen walking walks whereas word
When you are writing for fiction everything is in each word and each individual word is a literary decision, whereas if you are writing for the screen and you have a character walking into a room it is because she walks into the room: it doesn't matter if it isn't glorious literature.
area dublin gets given invent language lifted owns spoken thinks writer
If you're a writer in Dublin and you write a snatch of dialogue, everyone thinks you lifted it from Joyce. The whole idea that he owns language as it is spoken in Dublin is a nonsense. He didn't invent the Dublin accent. It's as if you're encroaching on his area or it's a given that he's on your shoulder. It gets on my nerves.
family dog thinking
I wasn't even aware of the Year of the Family. I couldn't give a toss. These things - the year of the family, the year of the three-legged dog. I think it's all trash.
growing-up dark differences
It was a sign of growing up, when the dark made no more difference to you than the day.
suicide photograph favourite
Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.
mean home world
If you are a writer you're at home, which means you're out of touch. You have to make excuses to get out there and look at how the world is changing.
want novel feels
My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.
growing-up writing fiction
When I was growing up, the exam system didn't allow you to write fiction, so you never did.
hands years answers
I've been asked why does Ireland produce so many great musicians, and the answer is it doesn't. When you count the great musicians Ireland has given the world in the last 20 years, you can do it on one hand.
growing-up sea what-matters
When you grow up on an island, what matters is how you stand to the sea.
children cutting adults
Sometimes adults seem as though they have cut a chord from being a child.
horse tea pot
She's a pot-of-tea-before-I-say-boo-to-you woman. There's always a pile of warm teabags in the sink when I come down, like what a horse would leave behind.
people example lucky
If you're from Dublin, for example, chances are you live with your family, if you're lucky enough to, right up to the mid-20s. And most of the people I know, when they finally sort of set off on their own, they don't stray all that far.