Quotes by Irish Authors - Page 22

I threw the pearl of my soul into a cup of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived on honeycomb.
Oscar Wilde
LADY BRACKNELLI had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now.ALGERNONI hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.
Oscar Wilde
What bothered me was all of the time he wasted by drumming, and all the time I wasted by listening to him drum, by taking pleasure in it, for pleasure is almost always a waste of time.
Sara Baume
JACKYour duty as a gentleman calls you back. ALGERNONMy duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.
Oscar Wilde
In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way.I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant.
Oscar Wilde
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
Oscar Wilde
Fiction should be in its way subversive. I don't think books should be neat or gentle or genteel or comforting. I think they should be raw. They should be written as perfectly as possible, but what they do is to stir up, to lance the reader.
Edna O'Brien
There are two moments worthwhile in writing, the one when you start and the other when you throw it in the waste-paper basket.
Samuel Beckett
Now there was great rejoicing at the rumor of Alderic's quest, for all folk knew that he was a cautious man, and they deemed that he would succeed and enrich the world, and they rubbed their hands in the cities at the thought of largesse; and there was joy among all men in Alderic's country, except perchance among the lenders of money, who feared they would soon be paid. And there was rejoicing also because men hoped that when the Gibbelins were robbed of their hoard, they would shatter their high-built bridge and break the golden chains that bound them to the world, and drift back, they and their tower, to the moon, from which they had come and to which they rightly belonged. There was little love for the Gibbelins, though all men envied their hoard.("The Hoard Of The Gibbelins")
Lord Dunsany
In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves.
Bram Stoker
Dragon kind was no less cruel than mankind. The Dragon, at least, acted from bestial need rather than bestial greed.”~ A thought by Lessa ~
Anne McCaffrey
She clenched her fist in his T-shirt, put her other arm around those too-broad, too-real shoulders. When he tried to pull away, she held on tight. Kami felt the surrender in his mind a moment before he laid his face in the curve of her neck. The whole world was so real it hurt.Kami whispered into Jared's hair, "I'm always on your side.
Sarah Rees Brennan
I have my moments,” he mused.“They’re few and far between,” Icountered, grinning
L.A. Casey
ROSE of all Roses, Rose of all the World!tThe tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurledtAbove the tide of hours, trouble the air,tAnd God’s bell buoyed to be the water’s care;tWhile hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a bandt With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand.tTurn if you may from battles never done,tI call, as they go by me one by one,tDanger no refuge holds, and war no peace,tFor him who hears love sing and never cease,t Beside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade:tBut gather all for whom no love hath madetA woven silence, or but came to casttA song into the air, and singing pasttTo smile on the pale dawn; and gather yout Who have sought more than is in rain or dewtOr in the sun and moon, or on the earth,tOr sighs amid the wandering starry mirth,tOr comes in laughter from the sea’s sad lips;tAnd wage God’s battles in the long grey ships.t The sad, the lonely, the insatiable,tTo these Old Night shall all her mystery tell;tGod’s bell has claimed them by the little crytOf their sad hearts, that may not live nor die.tRose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!t You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurledtUpon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ringtThe bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.tBeauty grown sad with its eternitytMade you of us, and of the dim grey sea.tOur long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait,tFor God has bid them share an equal fate;tAnd when at last defeated in His wars,tThey have gone down under the same white stars,tWe shall no longer hear the little cryt Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.The Sweet Far Thing
W.B. Yeats
Astride of a grave and a difficult birth.Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave digger puts on the forceps.We have time to grow old.The air is full of our cries.But habit is a great deadener.At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing.Let him sleep on.
Samuel Beckett
I am a dead woman. Dead and insane.
Caitlín R. Kiernan
And out the bus window, here is my dead world come true, my whole dead world in motion.
Sara Baume
Sometimes things happen that give me cause to believe I no longer exist. Car park barriers which do not lift when I drive towards them, automatic doors which do not open automatically as I approach.
Sara Baume
I am dwelling on things I love, even if a measure of tragedy is stitched into everything, if you follow the thread long enough
Sebastian Barry
Then she gave one last burst of music. The white Moon heard it, and she forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The red rose heard it, and it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold morning air. Echo bore it to her purple cavern in the hills, and woke the sleeping shepherds from their dreams. It floated through the reeds of the river, and they carried its message to the sea.
Oscar Wilde
It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in suchan inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, theirabsolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lackof style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give usan impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements ofbeauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, thewhole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenlywe find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of theplay. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonderof the spectacle enthralls us.
Oscar Wilde
These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a true critic: that he is a discoverer and collector of writers’ faults. Which may be farther put beyond dispute by the following demonstration: that whoever will examine the writings in all kinds, wherewith this ancient sect has honoured the world, shall immediately find, from the whole thread and tenor of them, that the ideas of the authors have been altogether conversant and taken up with the faults and blemishes, and oversights, and mistakes of other writers; and let the subject treated on be whatever it will, their imaginations are so entirely possessed and replete with the defects of other pens, that the very quintessence of what is bad does of necessity distil into their own, by which means the whole appears to be nothing else but an abstract of the criticisms themselves have made.
Jonathan Swift
How we lavish our money and worship on Shakespeare without in the least knowing why!
George Bernard Shaw
And if I am further pressed to declare straightforwardly whether I mean to disparage these authorities [who criticize Ibsen], I reply, pointedly, that I do. I affirm that such criticisms are written by men who know as much of political life as I know of navigation. (P. 56)
George Bernard Shaw
For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, the flesh being of too tender a consistence to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it.
Jonathan Swift
That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.
Jonathan Swift
We of this age have discovered a shorter, and more prudent method to become scholars and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking.
Jonathan Swift
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Edmund Burke
It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain.It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.
Oscar Wilde
Personally, I'd prefer a guy who wants to see my boobs.
Sarah Rees Brennan
The demons were scary, but girls - Well, girls are really terrifying
Darren Shan
How did that go” [Butler] asked. “Your first lengthy conversation with a girl your own age.”“Fabulous,” said Artemis, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “We’re planning a June wedding.
Eoin Colfer
So Father Ring went off in the lofty mood of a man who has defended a principle at a great sacrifice to himself, but that very night he began to brood and he continued to brood till that sickly looking voluptuary of a ten-shilling note took on all the radiance and charm of a virgin of seventeen.
Frank O'Connor
How else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter in?
Oscar Wilde
THE HOST is riding from Knocknarea And over the grave of Clooth-na-bare; Caolte tossing his burning hair And Niamh calling Away, come away: Empty your heart of its mortal dream. The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round, Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound, Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are a-gleam, Our arms are waving, our lips are apart; And if any gaze on our rushing band, We come between him and the deed of his hand, We come between him and the hope of his heart. The host is rushing ’twixt night and day, And where is there hope or deed as fair? Caolte tossing his burning hair, And Niamh calling Away, come away
W.B. Yeats
My wife was saying to me just the other day how she's noticed a spring in my step lately. That was because I thought you were gone forever.' 'I missed you too, Thurid.
Derek Landy
... for you will never, I trust, disconnect what you may yourselves be learning from the hope and prospect of being enabled thereby to teach others more effectually. If you do, and your studies in this way become a selfish thing, if you are content to leave them barren of all profit to others, of this you may be sure, that in the end they will prove not less barren of profit to yourselves. In one noble line Chaucer has characterized the true scholar:- "And gladly would he learn and gladly teach." Resolve that in the spirit of this line you will work and live.
Richard Chenevix Trench
A child can learn what is right as easy as what is wrong and whatever impressions are made on the mind when it is plastic will remain there.
Joseph Devlin
We can only learn to love by loving.
Iris Murdoch
One's sentiments -- call them that -- one's fidelities are so instinctive that one hardly knows they exist: only when they are betrayed or, worse still, when one betrays them does one realize their power.
Elizabeth Bowen
Become careless with fire, and sure enough, fire will burn you. Do treachery, and treachery will be done you. Kill, and be punished with death. All these I've done. Now I pay the price, in my own flesh and blood.
Diane Duane
No one knows how strong they are until they have to be.
Marian Keyes
He's a waiter, not a Mafia stooge, so what's he going to do? Blac pepper them to death? Compliment them into a coma? Run them over with the dessert trolley?
Marian Keyes
Because you promised? But you've promised me load of things. Like to cherish me and to love till death do us part.
Marian Keyes
He didn't even attempt to smile and I knew then that I had lost him.
Marian Keyes
If he says he doesn't love you anymore and does love this other woman, you've got to accept it. Maybe he will come back, maybe he won't, but either way, you've got to live through this.
Marian Keyes
As they say in New York, Get over it and, if you can't get over it, Get over talking about it.
Marian Keyes
If it was that beautiful, why did I leave you
Marian Keyes
Don't make the mistake of letting pride get in the way of forgiveness. You still love him. He still loves you. Don't throw it all away just because your feelings are hurt.
Marian Keyes
There was no honor in war, less in killing, and none in dying. But there was true dignity in how men comported themselves in battle. And there was always honor to be found in standing for a just cause and defending the defenseless.
Michael Scott
First and foremost, they had the curses of the country: and Sir Murtagh Rackrent, the new heir, in the next place, on account of this affront to the body, refused to pay a shilling of the debts, in which he was countenanced by all the best gentlemen of property, and others of his acquaintance; Sir Murtagh alleging in all companies that he all along meant to pay his father's debts of honour, but the moment the law was taken of him, there was an end of honour to be sure. It was whispered (but none but the enemies of the family believe it) that this was all a sham seizure to get quit of the debts which he had bound himself to pay in honour.
Maria Edgeworth
When honor dies—when trust is a useless thing—what use is life?
Diane Duane
It isn't about being or not being dead, it's about what you leave behind
Martin McDonagh
Harper to your word be trueHolder, crafter you also hewTo honesty, integrity, and respectAll others without regard to intellect
Anne McCaffrey
The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor.
George Bernard Shaw
There is nothing like race, is there?
Oscar Wilde
We still tell each other that we are lucky to be alive, when our being alive has almost nothing to do with luck, but with geography, pigmentation, and international exchange rates.
Joseph O'Connor
What I was caught up in, I dimly understood, was the embodiment of history
Peter Cunningham
A prince may be seen happy today and ruined tomorrow without having shown any chance in his character. For the prince who relies entirely on fortune is lost when it changes...
Neil Jordan
Deary me, boys, why? Why would someone with so much going for him have... have... ended it all in the way he appears to have done? 'Oh father, you see, it could be for any number of reasons ,' Andy said, serious and fluent, as if he was an expert on the subject. 'Personally I think it's a miracle that any of us survives.' What do you mean? said the Priest.'I mean' continued Andy, 'there's this one moment as you're growing up when the world suddenly feels more or less pointless- when the terribleness of reality lands on you, like something falling from the sky.''Something falling? Like what? asked Father Frank, trying his best.'Something big, like a piano, say, or a fridge. And when that happens, there's no going back to the time when it hadn't landed on you.'‘But what about the pleasures and the joy and the purpose, like sport, music, girls and the like?’ Father Frank was nearly pleading now.‘Fiction,’ sighed Andy. ‘Mirages in the desert of life, to make people feel like it might be worth it.’ ‘Oh,’ said Father Frank. ‘Oh I see, and do all you youngsters get this feeling?’‘Yes, I think so,’ said Andy, not even asking anyone else for their opinion, but most of us learn to live with it.’‘Well that’s a relief, I suppose.
Sarah Moore Fitzgerald