Quotes by Irish Authors - Page 14

Just about everything in this life is treacherous, ready to twist and shape-shift at any second; it seemed to me that the whole world would be a different place if you had someone you were certain of, certain to the bone, or if you could be that to someone else.
Tana French
I always pushed myself. Whenever I felt I needed to stop, I made myself run faster.
Cecelia Ahern
all fiction is better with explosions' said Jared. 'Basic fact of life.
Sarah Rees Brennan
He put this engine [a silver pocket watch] into our ears, which made an incessant noise, like that of a water-mill: and we conjecture it is either some unknown animal, or the god that he worships; but we are more inclined to the latter opinion, because he assured us, (if we understood him right, for he expressed himself very imperfectly) that he seldom did any thing without consulting it. He called it his oracle, and said, it pointed out the time for every action of his life.
Jonathan Swift
The quickest way to run out of time is to think you have enough of it,
Stewart Stafford
Always ask any questions that are to be asked and never answer any. Turn everything you hear to your own advantage. Always carry a repair outfit. Take left turns as much as possible. Never apply your front brake first.‘If you follow them’, said the Sergeant, ‘you will save your soul and never get a fall on a slippery road.
Flann O'Brien
The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
George Bernard Shaw
This (white settlers) was the section of humanity that was favored in that place, the Indians had no place no more there. Their tickets of passage were rescinded and the bailiffs of God took back the papers of their soles.
Sebastian Barry
If you see an injustice, and don’t move to right it when you have a chance, history won’t forget that, either.
Diane Duane
It’s a dark thing when the world sets no value on you and your kin, and then Death comes stalking in, in his bloody boots”.
Sebastian Barry
Breakfast was the full whammy: eggs, rashers, sausages, black pudding, fried bread, fried tomatoes. This was clearly some kind of statement, but I couldn't work out whether it was See, we're doing just grand without you, or I'm still slaving my fingers to the bone for you even though you don't deserve it, or possibly We'll be even when this lot gives you a heart attack.
Tana French
People see a Macbeth film. They imagine they have seen Macbeth, and don't want to see it again; so when your Mr. Hackett or somebody comes round to act the play, he finds the house empty. That is what has happened to dozens of good plays whose authors have allowed them to be filmed. It shall not happen to mine if I can help it.
George Bernard Shaw
There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The Number our envious Persons, confirmation our capability.
Oscar Wilde
It’s normal to like guys who seem to like you; it’s normal to want to be loved.”Kami raised her eyebrows. “I’m sixteen,” she said. “I’m not looking for love.”“Oh,” said Liz. “Uh, what are you looking for?”“Cheap thrills, mostly,” said Kami.
Sarah Rees Brennan
If you want to thrive, you need to sow the seeds of self-development.
Brian Buffini
I cannot choose one hundred best books because I have only written five
Oscar Wilde
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not got one who is a fool.
Oscar Wilde
Meg and Belch only had eyes for each other. Not in the usual romantic sense.
Eoin Colfer
A man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies. I have not got one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me.
Oscar Wilde
That's ridiculous. The only point in having enemies is so you can defeat them, kill them, brush them aside.""Or give them a chance to redeem themselves.
Derek Landy
Our flesh shrinks from what it dreads and responds to the stimulus of what it desires by a purely reflex action of the nervous system. Our eyelid closes before we are aware that the fly is about to enter our eye.
James Joyce
On the phone, it's about as intimate as it can get. The person's right in your ear. You got to be careful on the phone. You can leave yourself wide open
Bono
The miraculous intimacy we shared did not have the time to generate into resentful emotional bondage
Josephine Hart
Blood in the water I sing, and one who shed it: deadliest hunger I sing, and one who fed it- weaving the ancient-most tale of the Sea's sending: singing the tragedy, singing the joy unending This is our shame- this is the whole Ocean's glory: this is the Song of the Twelve. Hark to the story! Hearken, and bring it to pass: swift lest the sorrow long ago laid to it's rest devour us tomarrow!
Diane Duane
I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked.
Oscar Wilde
I’m just saying that once that have an excuse, people will do anything. They do what they are told, and they take their money and they think it’s all okay because it’s just their job, while their real self is what happens after work, when they’re bouncing a baby on the knee, or writing poems about snowflakes or whatever.
Paul Murray
Intellectual generalities are always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely nothing.
Oscar Wilde
History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetites, which shake the public with the same t —“troublous storms that tossThe private state, and render life unsweet.”These vices are the causes of those storms. Religion, morals, laws, prerogatives, privileges, liberties, rights of men, are the pretexts.
Edmund Burke
The solid earth sways like the treacherous sea beneath the feet of men and spirits alike when the innocent are slain in the name of law, and their wrongs are undone by slandering the pure of heart.
George Bernard Shaw
Have you ever heard of the theory of relativity?"Artemis blinked. "Is this a joke? I have traveled through time, Doctor. I think I know a little something about relativity.
Eoin Colfer
The sun was already long past the spire when Garrick purchased a mug of coffee from his regular man on the tip of Oxford Street. But his palate had been educated by 21st century coffee, and he judged this mug as bilge water not fit for the Irish.
Eoin Colfer
We're all weird.
John O'Callaghan
I'm a million different things every day of the week.
Cecelia Ahern
I am Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle. Keep a civil tongue in your head or lose it
Sarah Rees Brennan
it is a marvel that those red-roseleaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing.
Oscar Wilde
Her lips touched his brain as they touched his lips, as though they were a vehicle of some vague speech and between them he felt an unknown and timid preasure, darker than the swoon of sin, softer than sound or odor.
James Joyce
The effect on Lucy was not bad, for the faint seemed to merge subtly into the narcotic sleep. It was with a feeling of personal pride that I could see a faint tinge of colour steal back into the pallid cheeks and lips. No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own lifeblood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves.The Professor watched me critically. "That will do," he said. "Already?" I remonstrated. "You took a great deal more from Art." To which he smiled a sad sort of smile as he replied, "He is her lover, her fiance. You have work, much work to do for her and for others, and the present will suffice.
Bram Stoker
I'm the absolute queen bee of unrequited love.
Iris Murdoch
And my desire,' he said, 'is a desire that is as long as a year; but it is love given to an echo, the spending of grief on a wave, a lonely fight with a shadow, that is what my love and my desire have been to me.
Lady Augusta Gregory
Is there a word for adults when they aren't parents?"Steppa laughs. "Folks with other things to do?""Like what things?""Jobs, I guess. Friends. Trips. Hobbies.
Emma Donoghue
Grand Mage,” Ghastly said, as he put the map away, “did you know the sparrow flies south for the winter?”“What an odd thing to say,” Ravel said, and as he turned, he snapped his palm against the air and Paloma slammed into the wall.”…..“What do you know,” Ravel said, breathing a little faster, “Skulduggery’s silly little code actually works.”“Grand Mage,” Ghastly said, as he put the map away, “did you know the sparrow flies south for the winter?”“What an odd thing to say,” Ravel said, and as he turned, he snapped his palm against the air and Paloma slammed into the wall.”…..“What do you know,” Ravel said, breathing a little faster, “Skulduggery’s silly little code actually works.
Derek Landy
Hey, bodyguard. You better get down to the gymnasium. This jumbo pixie guy is killing your sister." "Really?" said Butler, unconvinced. "Really. Juliet just does not seem to be herself. She can't put two moves together. It's pathetic, really. Everybody is betting against her." "I see," said Butler, straightening. Mulch held the door. "It's going to make things really interesting when you show up to help." Butler grinned. "I'm not coming to help. I just want to be there when she stops faking." "Ah," said Mulch, comprehension dawning on his face. "So I should switch my bet to Juliet?" "You certainly should" said Butler.
Eoin Colfer
And there are moments that I would like to know what might have happened if it hadn't happened, and why it happened the way it did, and what it might have taken to prevent it from happening.
Colum McCann
You know I'll be Your Life Your VoiceYour Reason To BeMy Love My Heart Is Breathing For this Moment in TimeI'll Find the words to sayBefore You leave me Today
One Direction
If we could only have this life for one more day. If we could only turn back time. You know I'll be your life, your voice, your reason to be. My love, my heart is breathing for this moment in time. I'll find the words to say before you leave me today.
One Direction
I am Butler. Anything I say sounds scary.
Eoin Colfer
Presents don't really mean much to me. I don't want to sound mawkish, but - it was the realization that I have a great many people in my life who really love me, and who I really love.
Gabriel Byrne
And a young prince must be prudent like that,giving freely while his father livesso that afterwards, in age when fighting startssteadfast companions will stand by himand hold the line.
Seamus Heaney
oh well, is it hurting anyone? Because if its not and you’ve been given it, I’d as soon stop calling it a thing and start referring to it as a gift.
Cecelia Ahern
He could wear hats. He could wear an assortment of hats of different shapes and styles. Boater hats, cowboy hats, bowler hats. The list went on. Pork-pie hats, bucket hats, trillbies and panamas. Top hats, straw hats, trapper hats. Wide brim narrow brim, stingy brim. He could wear a fez. Fezzes were cool. Hadn't someone once said that fezzes were cool? He was pretty aur ether had. And they were. They were cool.
Derek Landy
At the door, there was one of those moment when two people realize that they like each other more than they know each other. This is nicer than the opposite situation, but more awkward. You try to remember the protocol for touching. You hate to gush, or presume to much, yet you are unwilling to let the moment pass without without some gesture
Emma Donoghue
The [Israelis] believed - they were possessed of an absolute certainty and conviction - that 'terrorists' were in Chatila. How could I explain to them that the terrorists had left, that the terrorists had worn Israeli uniforms, that the terrorists had been sent into Chatila by Israeli officers, that the victims of the terrorists were not Israelis but Palestinians and Lebanese?
Robert Fisk
They get up early, because they have so much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to think about.
Oscar Wilde
The reason I'm attracted to the light of Scripture is because there's another side of me that is dark. The reason I am interested in men of peace is because I'm not like them and would like to be. I'm not someone in real life who turns the other cheek.
Bono
Colin reached out and grabbed hold o fine car engine, ripping it. He lifted it above his head. Solomon Cord dropped the wrench and said God it is true.
Michael Carroll
The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism – are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor.But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life – educated men who live in the East End – coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins.
Oscar Wilde
Hello,” said the beautiful elven maid. “I was just thinking, and I mean no offence, but—how can any fighting force crowded with the softer sex hope to prevail in battle?”“Huh?” said Elliot, brilliantly. “The softer what?”“I refer to men,” said the elf girl. “Naturally I was aware the Border guard admitted men, and I support men in their endeavor to prove they are equal to women, but their natures are not warlike, are they?
Sarah Rees Brennan
They are all innocent until proven guilty. But not me. I am a liar until I am proven honest.
Louise O'Neill
I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.
Oscar Wilde