Quotes by Irish Authors - Page 19

She expected no judgement and wanted no pity.
Colum McCann
We are all the judges and the judged, victims of the casual malice and fantasy of others, and ready sources of fantasy and malice in our turn. And if we are sometimes accused of sins of which we are innocent, are there not also other sins of which we are guilty and of which the world knows nothing?
Iris Murdoch
A representative owes not just his industry but his judgement
Edmund Burke
You drive me crazy!""You were always crazy. I just highlight it.
Anna McPartlin
We all have our routines," he said softly."But they must have a purpose and provide an outcome that we can see and take some comfort from, or else they have no use at all. Without that, they are like the endless pacings of a caged animal. If they are not madness itself, then they are a prelude to it.
John Connolly
Which college?''Hmm?''Which college do you go to?'Fletcher nodded. 'Yes.''I'm sorry?''Oh,' Fletcher said, and laughed.Valkyrie's parents looked at Fletcher in near bewilderment. Fletcher looked back at them in total bewilderment. Valkyrie shook her head.
Derek Landy
Have to be honest with you Darquesse, I cannot feel that. That must be one of your special abilities, because to me, it looks like you just killed a whole bunch of people for no reason.""Oh," said Darquesse. "That's so sad
Derek Landy
You love someone. You don’t leave her to drown. And you don’t tell her she’s crazier than she already knows that she is!
Caitlín R. Kiernan
Don't open the door to strangers," said her dad. "Unless they're selling something. Then open the door and see if I'd like it. If I'd like it, buy it for me. But nothing cheap. I have standards. Nothing too expensive, either. My standards aren't that high.
Derek Landy
He had quite liked the dwarfs. He often had no idea what they were talking about, but for a group of homicidal, class-obsessed small people, they were really rather good fun.
John Connolly
One day at a time, sweet Jesus. Whoever wrote that one hadn’t a clue. A day is a fuckin’ eternity
Roddy Doyle
Great passions are for the great of soul, and great events can be seen only by those who are on a level with them
Oscar Wilde
I learned something important that night. You shouldn’t try to stop everything from happening. Sometimes you’re supposed to feel awkward. Sometimes you’re supposed to be vulnerable in front of people. Sometimes it’s necessary because it’s all part of you getting to the next part of yourself, the next day.
Cecelia Ahern
Well,” her mother said, looking at the engine, “at least that’s still there.”"Do you know anything about engines?" Stephanie asked."That’s why I have a husband, so I don't have to. Engines and shelves, that’s why men were invented."Stephanie made a mental note to learn about engines before she turned eighteen. She wasn't too fussed about the shelves.
Derek Landy
All we can hope for is that he will fall into the ocean with a bar of soap in his pocket.
Eoin Colfer
About Hollywood.I feel like it’s a big ocean, full of bottom feeders, midlevel fish, the occasional shark, and some wonderful savvy whales, the elders, and the ones who guide you on your way. If you’re lucky enough, you get to be a dolphin and have your waves broken by the passage of these elders before you, but at the same time, you get an occasional shark bite in the tail and maybe one of the bottom feeders comes up and takes a little nibble. But I see myself as cresting a series of waves, dipping down, sometimes, lower than I’d like, but mainly kind of happily staying above. (smiles and takes a long drag of her cigarette) And, of course, I try to avoid the fishnets.
Anjelica Huston
Reluctant to return to the empty rooms of Bluebell Cottage, Olivia ate fish and chips on the harbor wall, dangling her legs over the side just like she used to as a little girl, even though it made her mam anxious.The breeze nipped at the back of her neck and whipped up a fine sea spray that settled on her hands, leaving sparkling salt crystals as it dried. Fairy dust, she used to call it. She breathed in the fresh air and absorbed the view: tangerine sky and dove-gray sea, ripples on the surface of both, like dragon scales. She savored the sharp tang of vinegar on her tongue, letting her thoughts wander as the sun slowly melted into the sea, turning it to liquid gold.
Hazel Gaynor
There was a magic about the sea. People were drawn to it. People wanted to love by it, swim in it, play in it, look at it. It was a living thing that as as unpredictable as a great stage actor: it could be calm and welcoming, opening its arms to embrace it's audience one moment, but then could explode with its stormy tempers, flinging people around, wanting them out, attacking coastlines, breaking down islands. It had a playful side too, as it enjoyed the crowd, tossed the children about, knocked lilos over, tipped over windsurfers, occasionally gave sailors helping hands; all done with a secret little chuckle
Cecelia Ahern
Then we still have time!” I gasp. “It’s not too late. We know what he’s going to do. We’ll return to the cave and figh
Darren Shan
I stop reading after half an hour. I’ve had enough. Humanity has hit a brick wall. We’re facing our end, like the dinosaurs millions of years before us. The only difference is we’ve got journalists on hand to document every blow and setback, cataloguing our rapid, painful downfall in vibrant, vicious detail. Personally, I think the dinosaurs had the better deal. When it comes to impending, unavoidable extinction, ignorance is bliss.
Darren Shan
I've never met a politician who didn't deserve to be tossed into a pit full of Kallin," Beranabus grunts.
Darren Shan
Also," Nick added curtly, "I'm sorry about your face."Jamie looked over his shoulder, and touched the demon's mark crawling along his jaw with the back of his hand. "Sorry about saving all our lives by doing something you had to do?""Oh no," Nick said blandly, "I just meant, you know. Generally."Jamie stared at him, shocked, and laughed. It was a real laugh, helpless and sweet, and Mae memorized it in case he died. Jamie by the river at dawn, laughing.
Sarah Rees Brennan
He’d never heard of a demon with freckles before.
Michael Scott
How do you get on with your father ' Beleth asked.'Very well ' Pyrgus answered loyally although it was far from the truth.'I ate mine ' Beleth told him. 'He got old and feeble and useless but he wanted to hold on to power. So I took steps. Tasted disgusting - stringy tough smelly ... you know how fathers are - but it's the custom here. You're supposed to absorb the essence that way. Rank superstition of course but well ... tradition.
Herbie Brennan
Mae's first impulse was to die of shame, but she realized after a hot, stomach-clenching moment that this was probably impractical.
Sarah Rees Brennan
Old-fashioned people think you can have a soul without money. They think the less money you have, the more soul you have. Young people nowadays know better. A soul is a very expensive thing to keep: much more so than a motor car.
George Bernard Shaw
We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.
George Bernard Shaw
I also believe that when people are going through difficult situations in life... it causes them to search a lot more. They search life and search their soul. When you’re searching, you’re suddenly a lot more open to the world around you, to the possibilities, to things you never thought about before. — When you’re happy, you don’t question the world so much. When you’re lost, you question everything. The very reason why it is so essential to human self-discovery
Cecelia Ahern
Hauntings are memes, especially pernicious thought contagions, social contagions that need no viral or bacterial host and are transmitted in a thousand different ways... Too often, people make the mistake of trying to use their art to capture a ghost, but only end up spreading their haunting to countless other people.
Caitlín R. Kiernan
Do ghosts drink tea?They don't, said Tansey. But this ghost would love to see a cup of tea in front of her. It'd be lovely.
Roddy Doyle
Look at the woebegone walk of him. Eaten a bad egg. Poached eyes on ghost.
James Joyce
He specialized in a particular kind of friendship with that eight-limbed, inscrutable, treacherous creature, the happily married coupe, adapting himself closely and lightly to the composite personality.A peevish dead woman...it's absurd...ho much less humiliating for them both it would have been if she had taken a lover.
Bowen Elizabeth
He specialized in a particular kind of friendship with that eight-limbed, inscrutable, treacherous creature, the happily married coupe, adapting himself closely and lightly to the composite personality.A peevish dead woman...it's absurd...how much less humiliating for them both it would have been if she had taken a lover.
Elizabeth Bowen
I have seen worse things than ghosts, and if one were to appear to me, I should have so many questions to ask of it that it would have no time to groan and moan and shake its chains.
Paul Kearney
So let’s raise our glass to the accident season,To the river beneath us where we sink our souls,To the bruises and secrets, to the ghosts in the ceiling,One more drink for the watery road.
Moïra Fowley-Doyle
In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. In the little towns and villages there are no minorities; people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce. Every man is himself a class; every hour carries its new challenge. When you pass the inn at the end of the village you leave your favourite whimsy behind you; for you will meet no one who can share it. We listen to eloquent speaking, read books and write them, settle all the affairs of the universe. The dumb village multitudes pass on unchanging; the feel of the spade in the hand is no different for all our talk: good seasons and bad follow each other as of old. The dumb multitudes are no more concerned with us than is the old horse peering through the rusty gate of the village pound. The ancient map-makers wrote across unexplored regions, 'Here are lions.' Across the villages of fishermen and turners of the earth, so different are these from us, we can write but one line that is certain, 'Here are ghosts.' ("Village Ghosts")
W.B. Yeats
There is indeed a great deal of futility amongst the human race which we do not commonly see, for it all forms part of our illusion; but let a man be much annoyed by something that others do, so that he is separated from them and has to leave them, and looks back at what they are doing, and he'll see at once all manner of whimsical absurdities that he had not noticed before; and Ramon Alonzo in the shade of his oak, waiting for the noon to go by, grew very contemptuous of the attitude that the world took up towards shadows.
Lord Dunsany
Sacrifice is not an option, or an anachronism; it´s a fact of life. We all cut off our own limbs to burn on some altar. The crucial thing is to choose an altar that is worth it and a limb you can accept losing.
Tana French
ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I nearlost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we areflowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his lifeand the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because Isaw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always getround him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till heasked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over thesea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulveyand Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and thesailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes theycalled it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house withthe thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanishgirls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions inthe morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows whoelse from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market allclucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleepand the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps andthe big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands ofyears old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans likekings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda withthe old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for herlover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and thecastanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchmangoing about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O andthe sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets andthe figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streetsand the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and thejessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I wasa Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like theAndalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed meunder the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and thenI asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would Iyes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yesand drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes andhis heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
James Joyce
This morning, the sun endures past dawn. I realise that it is August: the summer's last stand.
Sara Baume
Just let them sit in the goddam sun. But the world won't let them because there's nothing more dangerous than letting old farts sit in the sun. They might be thinking. Same thing with kids. Keep 'em busy or they might start thinking.
Frank McCourt
And Jabim is the Lord of broken things, who sitteth behind the house to lament the things that are cast away. And there he sitteth lamenting the broken things until the worlds be ended, or until someone cometh to mend the broken things. Or sometimes he sitteth by the river's edge to lament the forgotten things that drift upon it.A kindly god is Jabim, whose heart is sore if anything be lost.
Lord Dunsany
Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the incorruptible eon of the gods.
James Joyce
Of the things we fashioned for them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works.
John Banville
Then the woman in the bed sat up and looked about her with wild eyes; and the oldest of the old men said: 'Lady, we have come to write down the names of the immortals,’ and at his words a look of great joy came into her face. Presently she, began to speak slowly, and yet eagerly, as though she knew she had but a little while to live, and, in English, with the accent of their own country; and she told them the secret names of the immortals of many lands, and of the colours, and odours, and weapons, and instruments of music and instruments of handicraft they held dearest; but most about the immortals of Ireland and of their love for the cauldron, and the whetstone, and the sword, and the spear, and the hills of the Shee, and the horns of the moon, and the Grey Wind, and the Yellow Wind, and the Black Wind, and the Red Wind. ("The Adoration of the Magi")
W.B. Yeats
Those whom the gods love grow young.
Oscar Wilde
She walked beside Jared, four inches of rain-dashed darkness between her hanging wrist and his.
Sarah Rees Brennan
You know,” he says, voice still low.“I have had nothing but trouble since you walked into my life.” “I’d walk straight back out of it if only you’d let me.
L.H. Cosway
Could you bring me to Rita’s house before we go to the airport?” I ask. “There’s one last thing I need to ask her to do.” “That is on the other side of the river,” says Ethan.“I know. But I need to see her. Please, I’ll be eternally grateful.” He doesn’t say anything, but instead puts the car in gear and starts the engine. After we are driving for about two minutes he asks. “How grateful?” Ah, I see the old Ethan hasn’t disappeared then. I smile and lean over to place a light peck on his cheek. “This grateful,” I say to him.“Hmm, I think you can do better than that,” he chides in good humor.“You’re driving,” is all I say in reply.“I can pull over,” he answers smartly.
L.H. Cosway
Wearing that? Wouldn't you fancy a shapeless cardigan instead? You rock a shapeless cardigan, honey.
Sarah Rees Brennan
You got all that from how they are looking at each other?” Ryder questioned.I glanced at him. “You didn’t get that from how they’re lookin’ at each other?”He rubbed his temples. “This is a woman thing.”“A woman thing?”“Yeah,” Ryder said. “You all have a sixth sense about shit like this so I’m just rolling with it.”I snorted. “That’s the smartest thing you’ve said all day.
L.A. Casey
I heard Dominic practice Bronagh’s breathing tactics, and I wondered if I’d be taking care of him in the delivery ward as well as her.“I feel like I’m about to pass out.”Yep, I’m definitely going to be looking after him.“Keep breathing, you’ll be fine,” I assured him. “Where’s me sister?”“Why’re you telling Dominic to breathe?’Ryder murmured.“He’s freakin’ out,” I whispered in response making him snicker.
L.A. Casey
You’re crazy.”“No one sane is this awesome,” he said as he pointed a finger at himself
L.A. Casey
Bronagh when she entered the room. She placed her hands on her hips and sighed, deeply. “I’m so fat.” She frowned. “It 58/668took me a whole sixty seconds to get meself off the toilet.”I snickered while Dominic tilted his head to the side.“Fat?” he questioned. “And here Ithought you were pregnant. Man, you had me fooled.”Bronagh gave him the finger. “Bite me, Fuckface. You did this to me.
L.A. Casey
Somethin’ about the lad draws her to ‘im, just like somethin’ about her draws ‘im to ‘er. You understand?”“No, not at all.” Ryder exhaled. “You say the word ‘him’ and ‘her’ so messed up, do you know that? The letter H is just completely disregarded.
L.A. Casey
baby you light up my world like nobody else
One Direction
Most of all she loved that when she hugged him her head would rest neatly just below his chin, where she could feel his breath lightly blowing her hair and tickling her head.
Cecelia Ahern
About this time, whether he felt there wasn't sufficient drama in his life or that he was determined not to be outdone by Miss McCabe, he decided that he was dying.
John McGahern
It is the duty of every father... to write fairy tales for his children.
Oscar Wilde
You don't need the help of politicians to be a good teacher, Peter.
Audrey Magee