Quotes by Irish Authors - Page 15

Be warned in time, James, and remain, as I do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood
Oscar Wilde
Rejection only made the attachment stronger. I realized that the impossibility of connection was a driving force behind his desire.
Deirdre Madden
It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most who will conquer.
Terence MacSwiney
Another funny thing about living in this city is how easy it can be to lose track of people. We're all so busy, always rushing around, so wrapped up in our own stuff. It stops occurring to us to check in with friends. I mean REALLY check in with them.
Ryan Kelly
I had enough electricity in my booty to jump-start the whole of New York City.
Colum McCann
Sometimes to walk in shaded parts of Manhattan is to be inserted into a Magritte: the street is night while the sky is day.
Joseph O'Neill
people in new york are authorized by convention to snoop around and mentally measure and pass comment on any real estate they're invited to step into.
Joseph O'Neill
It is necessary to find one's own way in New York. New York City is not hospitable. She is very big and she has no heart. She is not charming. She is not sympathetic. She is rushed and noisy and unkempt, a hard, ambitious, irresolute place, not very lively, and never gay. When she glitters she is very, very bright, and when she does not glitter she is dirty. New York does nothing for those of us who are inclined to love her except implant in our hearts a homesickness that baffles us until we go away from her, and then we realize why we are restless. At home or away, we are homesick for New York not because New York used to be better and not because she used to be worse but because the city holds us and we don't know why.
Maeve Brennan
One of those out-of-the-ordinary days that made sense of the slew of ordinary days. New York had a way of doing that. Every now and then the city shook its soul out. It assailed you with an image, or a day, or a crime, or a terror, or a beauty so difficult to wrap your mind around that you had to shake your head in disbelief.
Colum McCann
Early Summer, loveliest season,The world is being colored in.While daylight lasts on the horizon,Sudden, throaty blackbirds sing.The dusty-colored cuckoo cuckoos."Welcome, summer" is what he says.Winter's unimaginable.The wood's a wickerwork of boughs.Summer means the river's shallow,Thirsty horses nose the pools.Long heather spreads out on bog pillows.White bog cotton droops in bloom.Swallows swerve and flicker up.Music starts behind the mountain.There's moss and a lush growth underfoot.Spongy marshland glugs and stutters.Bog banks shine like ravens' wings.The cuckoo keeps on calling welcome.The speckled fish jumps; and the strongSwift warrior is up and running.A little, jumpy, chirpy fellowHits the highest note there is;The lark sings out his clear tidings.Summer, shimmer, perfect days.
Marie Heaney
I am cold, even though the heat of early summer is adequate. I am cold because I cannot find my heart.
Sebastian Barry
I lie down and think about how this whole long, strange summer ought to end in a substantial event. But, probably, won't. For the first time I acknowledge the possibility that nothing will die, or change, or even happen.
Sara Baume
O summer and soft wind. Relieves the heart and makes living cheaper.
J.P. Donleavy
In June we picked the clover,And sea-shells in July:There was no silence at the door,No word from the sky.A hand came out of AugustAnd flicked his life away:We had not time to bargain, mope,Moralize, or pray.
Cecil Day-Lewis
One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
Oscar Wilde
Be again, be again. (Pause.) All that old misery. (Pause.) Once wasn't enough for you.
Samuel Beckett
Misery loved company, but damnation needed it.
John Connolly
A face on him as long as a hare's back leg.
Myles na gCopaleen
JACK: I will be back in a few moments, dear Canon. Gwendolen! Wait here for me!GWENDOLEN: If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
Oscar Wilde
I know with unqualified certainty that I want to die. But I also know with equivalent certainty that I won't do anything about it. That I will only remain here and wait for death to indulge me.
Sara Baume
Lucky's monologue: "(...)the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts peniciline and succedanea in a word(...)
Samuel Beckett
Estragon: And if he doesn't come?Vladimir: (after a moment of bewilderment) We'll see when the time comes.
Samuel Beckett
E: Well, shall we go?V: Yes, let's go.(They do not move)
Samuel Beckett
But an intelligent man like you would know that to live in an unrealistic hope is a very foolish way to spend a life." - Lena Gray
Maeve Binchy
The wait is long, my dream of you does not end.
Nuala O'Faolain
Don’t wait to be hunted to hide, that was always my motto.
Samuel Beckett
Do you think we’ll be waiting long?” Valkyrie asked,keeping her voice low.“The last time we were in this building, we accused theGrand Mage of being a traitor,” Skulduggery said. “Yes, I thinkwe’ll be waiting long.
Derek Landy
There is something about gin, the tang in it of the deep wildwood, perhaps, that always makes me think of twilight and mists and dead maidens. Tonight it tinkled in my mouth like secret laughter.
John Banville
The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue...
James Joyce
Many people die of thirst but the Irish are born with one.
Spike Milligan
To be certain you're consuming the real deal, look carefully at the label. W-h-i-s-k-e-y indicates the heavenly liquid from the Emerald Isle. Without the "e," it's from Scotland or some other godforsaken place.
Rashers Tierney
Gin and whisky cost so much more. Oblivion and courage could no longer be purchased for the price of an old song.
Norah Hoult
After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.
Oscar Wilde
Liquor is the chloroform which enables the poor man to endure the painful operation of living.
George Bernard Shaw
Or because they hope these walls of books will deaden the drumming of the demon in their ears
Louis MacNeice
Certain battles were won by retreating.
Eoin Colfer
Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever. It is a meaningless word, too.
Oscar Wilde
Unhappiness where's when I was young, And we didn't give a damn, 'Cause we were raised, To see life as fun and take it if we can.
Dolores O'Riordan
you knowI knowyou knowI'll remember youand I knowYou knowI knowyou'll remember me
One Direction
Tonight we flyOver the mountainsThe beach and the seaOver the friends that we've knownAnd those that we now knowAnd those who we've yet to meetAnd when we dieOh, will we beThat disappointedOr sadIf heaven doesn't existWhat will we have missedThis life is the best we've ever had
Neil Hannon
Experience has taught me that what you love, you should love all the harder because someday it will be gone.
Ronan O'Brien
I believe that our lives, just like fairy tales - the stories that have been written by us humans, through our own experiences of living - will always have a Hero and a Heroine, a Fairy Godmother and a Wicked Witch.
Lucinda Riley
Sometimes you must shed your skin to save it.
Emma Donoghue
Fairy tales are such evil stories for young children. Every time I'm in a mess I expect a long-haired posh-speaking man to come trotting into my life (on a horse of course, literally trotting himself...) Then you realize you don't want a long-haired posh-speaking man trotting into your life because he's the one who put you in the bloody mess in the first place.
Cecelia Ahern
You’re wrong about one thing: fairy-tales do exist. Millions of existing parents read existing fairy-tales every night from existing books to kids who, funnily enough...’‘... exist, yeah, I know. I mean it’s fantasy, not reality.
Jonathan Dunne
Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea.
Oscar Wilde
And tonight Mary could taste bitterness going down like a nut, settling in her stomach. It planted itself, put down roots, and began to grow, nourished on her dark blood.
Emma Donoghue
And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful wine-press for awhile; and shall later on be my companion and my helper.
Bram Stoker
I must confess that most modern mysticism seems to me to be simply a method of imparting useless knowledge in a form that no one can understand
Oscar Wilde
We are clay and nothing is real for us except the uncanny womb of Being into which we shall return.
Iris Murdoch
Most of the people I know who are having trouble finding their life work are somewhat passive in style. They wait for something good to happen to them rather than make strong positive moves.
Thomas Moore
Underneath his sweetness and gentleness was the heat of a volcano. [Michael Faraday] was a man of excitable and fiery nature; but through high self-discipline he had converted the fire into a central glow and motive power of life, instead of permitting it to waste itself in useless passion.
John Tyndall
As you grow in true spiritual power and understanding you will actually find that many outer rules and regulations will become unnecessary; but this will be because you have really risen above them; never, never, because you have fallen below them. This point in your development, where your understanding of Truth enables you to dispense with certain outer props and regulations, is the Spiritual Coming of Age. When you really are no longer spiritually a minor, you will cease to need some of the outer observances that formerly seemed indispensable; but your resulting life will be purer, truer, freer, and less selfish than it was before; and that is the test.
Emmet Fox
Let justice be done tho the heavens fall.
Michael Davitt
She was well primed with a good load of Delahunt's port under her bellyband.
James Joyce
A drinker does not exist. Whatever they say, it is just the drink talking
Anne Enright
I want a new liver to replace my heart.""Um, why?""Because then I could drink more and care less.
L.A. Casey
How is that for some people drinking is a short-term loan on the spirit, but for others a heavy mortgage on the soul?
Sebastian Barry
I'm Irish yet I don't drink as I refuse to be a stereotype and live down to the expectations of others.
Stewart Stafford
It is not against the law to drink in public places, and you will see people drinking in parks or by the lake. The Swiss have a more relaxed attitude to alcohol consumption. From the age of 16, young people can be served beer or wine in a bar.
Clare O'Dea