Irish Quotes

To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.

My people - before I was changed - they exchanged this as a sign of devotion. It's a Claddagh ring. The hands represent friendship; the crown represents loyalty... and the heart... Well, you know... Wear it with the heart pointing towards you. It means you belong to somebody. Like this.

Joss Whedon

Many people die of thirst but the Irish are born with one.

Spike Milligan

Because you’re not a one-night girl, Irish.” (...) “You’re my forever girl.

K.A. Tucker

Her smile increased. She had perfect white regular teeth; Irish, Juliana decided. Only Irish blood could give that jawline such femininity.

Philip K Dick

Let justice be done tho the heavens fall.

Michael Davitt

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

We are the rocks and reefs of the human sea, tumultuous outcrops, magnets for wrecks. The peaks of mountains you cannot see: that's us, all right. Dark even on the brightest day. Stony and defiant of the prevailing currents until we are eventually worn down and dissolved. Sometimes soaked and sometimes dry as a bone. Hammered by tides and grimly standing our ground against the pounding. Probably even secretly enjoying the pounding.

Brian Doyle

Damn it all, MacMurrough, are you telling me you are an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort?’‘If you mean am I Irish, the answer is yes.

Jamie O'Neill

The sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea.

James Joyce

I give you my love & my luck. Don't throw either away.

Kelly Moran

She let her mind drift, thinking about new lingerie designs, wishing she'd brought along her sketchpad. Inspiration could strike at the most inconvenient times--in the shower, in the car, on this road--but she was grateful it was with her again, an old companion with whom she was getting reacquainted, pleased to find they could take up where they'd left off, as if there'd been no estrangement at all.

Heather Barbieri

Irish improves a poet.

Sina Queyras

The Celt, and his cromlechs, and his pillar-stones, these will not change much – indeed, it is doubtful if anybody at all changes at any time. In spite of hosts of deniers, and asserters, and wise-men, and professors, the majority still are adverse to sitting down to dine thirteen at a table, or being helped to salt, or walking under a ladder, of seeing a single magpie flirting his chequered tale. There are, of course, children of light who have set their faces against all this, although even a newspaperman, if you entice him into a cemetery at midnight, will believe in phantoms, for everyone is a visionary, if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celt, unlike any other, is a visionary without scratching.

W.B. Yeats

Author? Author? Did you write these legs?''Yes."'Well, I don't like dem. I don't like 'em at all at all. I could ha' writted better legs meself.

Spike Milligan

Atty’s eyes rested on Darby with all the subtlety of a dog watching his food bowl being filled!

Tricia Murphy

Margaret looked at the ring on her finger. "Gran gave me this before we boarded the ship. It's the most special thing in the world to me. I'll never take it off, Hanna. No matter how hungry I am.

Meredith Jaeger

Father, I can’t take this,” I said. “Why not?” “Because you’re a priest, Father.” “And my money’s no good because of it? What are you? A member of the Masonic Lodge?” “Naw, Father,” I said. “I just feel guilty taking money from you.” “Well, you’re Irish and Jewish. You have to feel guilty over somethin’, don’t ya? Take the money and be happy ye have it.

John William Tuohy

more guilt, guilt, guilt. That's the Irish condition.

Adrian McKinty

Oh, now my Erin, she'd smile down on me no matter where I walked." Grandpop smiled that little smile again. "But I'd be separated from her, and I'd feel that separation in my soul, you see?"Nathan shook his head.Grandpop sighed. "You have the Irish eyes, boy. One of these days, you'll see from eyes, not your own, feel with a heart outside your chest. Wild Irish eyes. Nathan. When you love, love well and love true, and take care, lad, because those Irish eyes are windows into not just your own soul, but the soul of the one you love." Grandpop looked out at his Erin's grave."And when you lose that heart, you can't leave the places where your memories are the best. And if I left her, I'd not be buried beside her.

Lora Leigh

He kissed her like he owned her, and in that moment, he did. The kiss was rough and punishing, his tongue forcing her lips open and sweeping into her mouth with greedy precision. Electricity raced up Bailey's spine, red-hot and powerful, as powerful as the deep strokes of Sean's tongue and his tight grip on her waist."You want me," he muttered into her lips...

Elle Kennedy

Bailey went quiet, her expression softening. "You're right," she finally said. "It wouldn't have been smart.""Well, fuck me -- are you actually admitting that I was right about something?""It's like an eclipse," she muttered. "Happens every so often.

Elle Kennedy

Is he always like this?" she said irritably. "Flying by the seat of his pants?""Pretty much, yeah." Oliver grinned. "He's not a planner. But he happens to be the best improviser I've ever known.

Elle Kennedy

… in these new days and in these new pages a philosophical tradition of the spontaneity of speculation kind has been rekindled on the sacred isle of Éire, regardless of its creative custodian never having been taught how to freely speculate, how to profoundly question, and how to playfully define. Spontaneity of speculation being synonymous with the philosophical-poetic, the philosophical-poetic with the rural philosopher-poet, and by roundelay the rural philosopher-poet thee with the spontaneity of speculation be. And by the way of the rural what may we say? A philosopher-poet of illimitable space we say. Iohannes Scottus Ériugena the metaphor of old salutes you; salutes your lyrical ear and your skilful strumming of the rippling harp. (Source: Hearing in the Write, Canto 19, Ivy-muffled)

Richard McSweeney

Lost: Heartbeat. Last seen being chased away by an Irishman’s shameless grin. Reward if returned.

Whitney K.E.

Kate giggled. “Excellent choice.”“I always make excellent choices.”“I don’t know about that.”“Of course I do. I picked ye, didn’t I?

Whitney K.E.

If it’s only a kiss you want, I can kiss you with my clothes on.” Katie O'Reilly to Captain Lord Blackthorn in "Titanic Rhasody.

Jina Bacarr

Let the Moon and the Stars pour their healing light on you...

Irish Blessing

May you have the hindsight to know where you've been, The foresight to know where you are going, And the insight to knowwhen you have gone too far

Irish Blessing

That was it. To be a rolling stone. In the romantic places of the earth. Ready for a fight, a frolic, or a feed. And since I was Irish, since I was Billy Hamill's son, since I was from Brooklyn: a drink too.

Pete Hamill

There was a dark aura about him, a hint of caged power in that deceptively casual, sprawled poise. Danger personified.If this had been a film she would have expected to hear the warning wail of an electric guitar creep over the soft background bustle of the city.

Heather R. Blair

To anyone with a drop of Irish blood in them the land they live on is like their mother. It's the only thing that lasts, that's worth working for, for fighting for...

Alexandra Ripley

I shall ne'er chase rainbows again, Knowing no pot o' gold awaits at the end. My Irish treasure is not there. For ye, my love, abide with me here.

Richelle E. Goodrich

Corned beef and cabbage and leprechaun men.Colorful rainbows hide gold at their end.Shamrocks and clovers with three leaves plus one.Dress up in green—add a top hat for fun.Steal a quick kiss from the lasses in red.A tin whistle tune off the top of my head.Friends, raise a goblet and offer this to

Richelle E. Goodrich

It’s simply this:the Irish kiss,a snog o’ bliss,be blessed luckfrom any miss.

Richelle E. Goodrich

Be sure to wear greenon March seventeen,or else Irish leprechauns pinch your bones clean!

Richelle E. Goodrich

The earth makes a sound as of sighs and the last drops fall from the emptied cloudless sky. A small boy, stretching out his hands and looking up at the blue sky, asked his mother how such a thing was possible. Fuck off, she said.

Samuel Beckett

The Irish way of telling a story is a complex and elaborate one, complete with wild exaggerations, a certain delight in improbable fantasy, and a heightened sense of drama.

Rashers Tierney

You're a Scott," the Dark said, his lips peeled back in displeasure, as if just saying the word was revolting."And you're Irish. I'm so glad we got that settled.

Donna Grant

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

Edna O'Brien

Hating is easy. It's loving that's hard

Morgan Llywelyn

Irish and English are so widely separated in their mode of expression that nothing like a literal rendering from one language to the other is possible.

Robin Flower

...that it is not the literal past, the 'facts' of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.

Brian Friel

She knew them by their thick woven cloaks, their hanging hair and beards, and their Anglisc voices: words drumming like apples spilt over wooden boards, round, rich, stirring. Like her father’s words, and her mother’s, and her sister’s. Utterly unlike Onnen’s otter-swift British or the dark liquid gleam of Irish. Hild spoke each to each. Apples to apples, otter to otter, gleam to gleam, though only when her mother wasn’t there.

Nicola Griffith

Up and down' is Irish for anything at all--from crying into the dishes to full-blown psychosis. Though, now that I think about, a psychotic is more usually 'not quite herself'.

Anne Enright

I remember when I was a kid, seven years old maybe eight, I had an Irish girl who was taking care of us. Stereotypically named Maureen, about nineteen years old or twenty years old. She came upon me one day with my soldiers all set-up having a battle. Romans against Celts. She said, "Who's going to win?" I said, "The Romans are going to win, Romans always beat the Celts." She said, "Oh, really? What language are they currently speaking in Italy?" She says, "Bear in mind, back at home, we're still speaking the Irish. Of course, Irish, Gaelic, is a Celtic language, and you'll note that it ain't dead yet.

Dan Carlin

He had been thinking of how landscape moulds a language. It was impossible to imagine these hills giving forth anything but the soft syllables of Irish, just as only certain forms of German could be spoken on the high crags of Europe; or Dutch in the muddy, guttural, phlegmish lowlands.

Alexander McCall Smith

Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam. A country without a language is a country without a soul.

Pádraic Pearse

More than loud acclaim, I loveBooks, silence, thought, my alcove.Pangur BánPoem by Anon Irish Monk, Translated by Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney

So go love someone that wants to love you back. Whoever that lad is will be one lucky person.

Alisa Mullen

An cinniúnt, is dócha: féach an féileacán úd thall atá ag foluain os cionn mo choinnle. Ní fada go loiscfear a sciatháin mhaiseacha: cá bhfios dúinne nach bhfuil a fhios sin aige, freisin?

Pádraic Ó Conaire

I turned on the water then returned to the door jamb. “That’s not fair, you’re nice and clean.”“I am?” He took a few steps toward me.“Aren’t you?”“No,” he scowled and shook his head. “I’m dirty. But you knew that.” Now, if you haven’t heard an Irishman say the word “dirty” before, I will compare it with dynamite in your ovaries. They say it with like, seven Rs.

Nicole Castro

On the floor beside the spare pillow that had tumbled from the bed in her sleep was a single yellow flower. Five heart-shaped petals. As fresh and as pure as if it were in full bloom in a summer meadow.Drowsy and mind-fogged, she crept downstairs to look for a book on Irish wildflowers. It took her a while to find anything that resembled the yellow flower, but eventually she found an image and description that matched: "Cinquefoil, a flower renowned for its healing properties and a flower also said to be favored by fairy folk. Meanings associated with it include money, protection, sleep, prophetic dreams, and beloved daughter.

Hazel Gaynor

Oberon’s been kidnapped along with one of the werewolves, and that’s why we’re all so upset. We’ll talk more tomorrow, and I promise to answer all your questions if I survive the night,” I said. The widow’s eyebrows raised. “Ye’ve got all these nasty pooches to run around with and ye still might die?” “I’m going to go fight with a god, some demons, and a coven of witches who all want to kill me,” I said, “so it’s a distinct possibility.” “Are y’goin’ t’kill ’em back?” “I’d certainly like to.” “Attaboy,” the widow chuckled. “Off y’go, then. Kill every last one o’ the bastards and call me in the mornin’.

Kevin Hearne

Imagine if we were all magical leprechauns, and every wish ever made on a four-leaf clover obliged us to help others obtain their wishes. Now imagine if people simply lived like this were true.

Richelle E. Goodrich

After a taste of a Scot, you'll never look elsewhere again."A brunette smiled seductively, "That's quite a boast.""I'm quite a man.

Donna Grant

There was always a big party on the night before anyone left for the States. They called it an American wake, because the whole community stayed up to keep the emigrants company through their last night on the island, just as they would have bidden farewell to a soul beginning the long journey towards eternity. There was almost no chance that anyone present would ever see the departed again

Cole Moreton

Oh, trust me Sydney Tar Ponds, you aren’t the first Personification to be forgotten by somebody ordinary,” Mearth sighed with a falsely-reassuring smile. Alecto stepped back from her, glaring hatefully. “Sydney Tar Ponds,” Mearth added, “I’ve had so many ordinary people as friends in my life that by now I’ve forgotten all their names. At first it was difficult… very sad… to see them always leaving, dying, disappearing, ignoring, but after a while I realized that they weren’t worth the trouble. I’d rather be in the company of other Personifications. At least they aren’t always dropping dead like houseflies or sailing away to parts unknown. Nil sa saol seo ach ceo, i ni bheimid beo, ach seal beag gearr. Wouldn’t you agree?”“No,” Alecto told her. “I think you’re insane.

Rebecca McNutt

All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead.

Samuel Beckett

Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.

W.B. Yeats

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Irish Quotes

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