Maeve Binchy Quotes

I am a big, confident, happy woman who had a loving childhood, a pleasant career, and a wonderful marriage. I feel very lucky.

I'm getting better, happier, and nicer as I grow older, so I would be terrific in a couple of hundred years time.

I wore miniskirts in the days when no fat girls should have, and with total delight.

Any one could write a book," said the taxi driver. " Yes, they could, but they DON'T," said Maeve Binchy

In my experience ,lights at the end of the tunnel tend to flicker out .

In my stories, whenever there's somebody wonderful and charming and bright and intelligent, that's me!

I was fat, and that was awful because when you're young and sensitive, you think the world is over because you're fat.

Do you know the land where the lemon-trees blossom;where the golden oranges glow in the dark foliage'.

Everybody is a hero in their own story if you just look.

The most important thing to realise is that everyone is capable of telling a story. It doesn't matter where we were born or how we grew up.

I'm mainly an airport author, and if you're trying to take your mind off the journey, you're not going to read 'King Lear.'

Stop thinking like Alice in Wonderland, Celia told herself sternly. You're a grown-up, it's no use shutting your eyes, wishing things would happen

Benny explained that it wasn't her sweater. It was borrowed from a fellow. She wondered why she needed to tell so much to strangers.

Money doesn't make you happy, but it gives a zone of comfort around you.

Modern surgery has been like a miracle to those who thought the pain was going to go on forever.

Happiness is knowing and appreciating what you've got. I am very, very, very grateful for what, to me, is dead easy.

I didn't have a sweet tooth, but I liked butter, and I liked sauces, and I liked wine ... and curry ... and cheeses.

You can't marry an ungenerous man; there's no joy in his soul.

You don't wear all your jewellery at once. You're much more believable if you talk in your own voice.

The whole art of life is knowing the right time to say things.

It was true what they had been saying: if people remember you, then you're not dead. It was very comforting.

It's a funny old world. Once you realize that, you're halfway there.

Nobody is ordinary if you know where to look.

Who knows what light housework means? One nun's light could be another nun's penal servitude.

God, Benny, don't blow your nose like that in the church. You'd lift half the congregation out of their seats," Patsy warned.

I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks.

She soon called a halt to the work. Judy's great success was that she stopped her helpers before they got tired.

He thought about how life never turns out like you think and hope it will.

I do try to live every day as if it were my last, and it has worked for me so far.

I've seen a lot of people buy my books and then fall asleep on the plane soon afterwards.

All I ever wanted to do is to write stories that people will enjoy and feel at home with.

I think I was dealt a good hand. I have happy genes.

he must not know how much power he had to move her.

I'm a great will maker. I've made my will every year since I was 21.

If you're going on a plane journey, you're more likely to take one of my stories than 'Finnegan's Wake.'

No point in destroying Wednesday thinking about Friday. This one-day-at-a-time thing really worked. Friday

You can't lay down laws for what people think and hope.

respectability with overtones of

Women who start out as ugly ducklings don't become beautiful swans. What they mainly become is confident ducks. They take charge of their lives.

I love thriller writers. My favourites are Harlan Coban, Lee Child, Ian Rankin, Kathy Reichs and Ed McBain.

I've been very lucky and I have a happy old age with good family and friends still around.

To heal would be to open the wound,examine it and forgive

He called everyone sweetheart. There was nothing particularly special about it.

If you had your time all over again ... ? She was keen to know.
You can't rewrite history. I have no idea what I'd do.

Wasn't it hard that you did so much for children and loved them so deeply and they seemed so indifferent to you in return?

home early, Liam?

I have great family and good friends; the stories I told became popular, and people all over the world bought them.

I have been lucky enough to travel a lot, meet great people in many lands. I have liked almost everyone I met along the way.

My brother married young, and his is the best marriage I know.

Of course I wanted children. Bright, gorgeous, loving children. I could almost see them.

Always write as if you are talking to someone. It works. Don't put on any fancy phrases or accents or things you wouldn't say in real life.

I think you've got to play the hand that you're dealt and stop wishing for another hand.

I've had a good life, full of more success and happiness than I ever expected.

I'm pleased to have outsold great writers. But I'm not insane - I realize I am a writer people buy to take on vacation.

bowls of cornflakes,

We have to make our own happiness, and we have to make our own decisions and play the hand that is dealt to us.

If you don't go to a dance, you can never be rejected, but you'll never get to dance, either.

I look placid, you see, that's why people think I'm fine. Inside I worry a lot.

If you woke up each morning, and immediately dwelt on your ills, what sort of a day could you look forward to?

Her life was like her house - a colorful fantasy where anything was possible if you wanted it badly enough.

Because I saw my parents relaxing in armchairs and reading and liking it, I thought it was a peaceful grown-up thing to do, and I still think that.

It was quite possible that she had lost the capacity to love and care anymore and that this is how she was going to be for the rest of her life.

Writing is a bit like going on a diet; you should either tell everyone or no one.

I'm an escapist kind of writer.

My memory of my home was that it was very happy, and that there was more fun and life there than there was anywhere else.

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

I think I'm brave because I've made decisions based - I hope not entirely selfishly - on what I think is right for me to do next.

I was just lucky I lived in this time of mass-market paperbacks.

I have an irregular heartbeat, so that means a fair amount of medication - and I have blood pressure pills, too, but no vitamins or supplements.

That's the kind of motif I bring to the books - that people take charge of their own lives.

He had not known it was possible to love a little human being as he loved Annie.

I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation. I'm an escapist kind of writer.

I had a very happy childhood, which is unsuitable if you're going to be an Irish writer.

Listen to me, Ria. It will be different when you and I have a home. It will be a real home, one that people will want to come running back to.

Never mind money; the gifts of time and skill call into being the richest marketplace in the world.

A silly idea about a book of blessings couldn't really work. Not seriously.