John Boyne
John Boyne
John Boyneis an Irish novelist. He is the author of nine novels for adults and five novels for younger readers. His novels are published in 50 languages...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth30 April 1971
CountryIreland
dream night silence
The first thing he noticed was how quiet it was. This was nothing like the kind of quiet he heard when he woke up in the middle of the night after a bad dream. When that happened, there were always strange, unidentifiable sounds seeping into his room from the tiny gaps where the windowpanes weren't sealed together correctly. At those moments he could always tell there was life outside, even if all that life was fast asleep. It was a silence that wasn't silence at all.
children boys stairs
He looked the boy up and down as if he had never seen a child before and wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with one: eat it, ignore it or kick it down the stairs.
fighting animal mind
He suddenly became convinced that if he didn’t do something sensible, something to put his mind to some use, then before he knew it he would be wondering round the streets having fights with himself and inviting domestic animals to social occasions too.
my-best-friend shmuel said
You’re my best friend, Shmuel,’ he said. ‘My best friend for life.
unknown-worlds finding-happiness knows
It is possible, you know, to drift off to an unknown world and find happiness there. Maybe even more happiness than you've ever known before.
trying world breathe
There is cruelty in the world Eliza, you can see that, can't you? It surrounds us. It breathes on us. We spend our life trying to escape it.
boys years immaturity
... Nine-year-old boys usually turn ten at some point. It's the nineteen-year-olds who have difficulty turning twenty.
children distance book
With the adult ones, I feel I need to get as deep inside the psychology of a character as I can, and that needs to be first-person. In the children's books, I feel I need some distance. I don't want to be the nine-year-old at the center of the story. I need to have some type of narrative voice.
memories book passion
I hope for so much from every book I read. And time and again, I find myself disappointed. I look across my bookshelves and see hundreds of titles which in my memory seem merely mediocre or second-rate. Only occasionally does a novel appear for which I feel a lasting passion, a book that I think could in time become a classic.
years dublin events
It's not easy making a living as a writer, and for many years I worked at a Waterstones in Dublin. It was a good environment for an aspiring writer, with lots of events and authors appearing.
writing past stories
I enjoy the research element. There are so many stories from the past that interest me, that I want to learn more about, just as an interested person. And if I'm going to learn, if I'm going to research, it's probably going to lead me to writing a novel.
night men sky
Just because a man glances up at the sky at night does not make him an astronomer, you know.
dad clothes people
Bruno: Why do you wear pajamas all day? Shmuel: The soldiers. They took all our clothes away. Bruno: My dad's a soldier, but not the sort that takes people's clothes away.
grandmother costumes pretending
It reminds me of how grandmother always had the right costume for me to wear. You wear the right outfit and you feel like the person you're pretending to be.