This essential piece of our humanness

I liked what John Banville said to Claudia Winkleman on Radio 2 last night about the sentence, so I went on to iPlayer and transcribed it:

‘I work in the sentence. The sentence is the essence of our humanity. It’s our greatest invention and I love working in it. It’s a great privilege that I make some sort of a living from every day dabbling in this essential piece of our humanness. Yes, I love a good sentence. I spend a great deal of time trying to get them right.’