Edna O'Brien Quotes

“In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things.”

“… people liking you or not liking you is an accident and is to do with them and not you. That goes for love too, only more so.”

“Writers are always anxious, always on the run--from the telephone, from responsibilities, from the distractions of the world.”

“When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.”

“Books everywhere. On the shelves and on the small space above the rows of books and all along the floor and under chairs, books that I have read, books that I have not read.”

“She said the reason that love is so painful is that it always amounts to two people wanting more than two people can give.”

“It is increasingly clear that the fate of the universe will come to depend more and more on individuals as the bungling of bureaucracy permeates every corner of our existence.”

“Writers really live in the mind and in hotels of the soul.”

“Oh, God, who does not exist, you hate women, otherwise you'd have made them different. And Jesus, who snubbed your mother, you hate them more.”

“The vote, I thought, means nothing to women, we should be armed.”

“She has always ridden the passions as if they were a magnificent horse.”