Edna O'Brien Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Death in its way comes just as much of a surprise as birth.

  Edna O'Brien

  Death, Way, Birth

  Edna O'Brien (2013). “The Love Object: Selected Stories of Edna O'Brien”, p.138, Faber & Faber

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• Oh, God, who does not exist, you hate women, otherwise you'd have made them different. And Jesus, who snubbed your mother, you hate them more.

  Edna O'Brien

  Mother, Jesus, Hate

  Edna O'Brien (1978). “Seven novels and other short stories”, HarperCollins

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• Kindness. The most unkind thing of all.

  Edna O'Brien

  Kindness, All Kinds, Unkind

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• Writing is the product of a deeply disturbed psyche, and by no means therapeutic.

  Edna O'Brien

  Writing, Mean, Disturbed

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• Life, after all, was a secret with the self. The more one gave out, the less there remained for the center--that center which she coveted for herself and recognized instantly in others. Fruits had it, the very heart of, say, a cherry, where the true worth and flavor lay. Some of course were flawed or hollow in there. Many, in fact.

  Edna O'Brien

  Heart, Self, Secret

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• Ideally I'd like to spend two evenings a week talking to Proust and another conversing with the Holy Ghost.

  Edna O'Brien

  Talking, Two, Evening

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• August is a wicked month.

  Edna O'Brien

  August, Wicked, Months

  Edna O'Brien (2016). “August is a Wicked Month”

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• After that dark woman you search for someone who will fit into the irregular corners of your heart.

  Edna O'Brien

  Heart, Dark, Fit

  Edna O'Brien (2012). “Country Girl”, p.84, Faber & Faber

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• shadows of love, inebriations of love, foretastes of love, trickles of love, but never yet the one true love.

  Edna O'Brien

  Shadow, Shadow Of Love, Inebriation

  Edna O'Brien (2014). “Night”, p.103, Faber & Faber

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• I'm a tuning fork, tense and twanging all the time.

  Edna O'Brien

  Tuning, Forks, Tense

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• There was I, devouring books and yet allowing a man who had never read a book to walk me home for a bit of harmless fumbling on the front steps.

  Edna O'Brien

  Book, Home, Men

  Edna O'Brien (2012). “Country Girl”, p.89, Faber & Faber

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• jealousy is the direct result of self-betrayal.

  Edna O'Brien

  Jealousy, Betrayal, Self

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• What matters is the imaginative truth.

  Edna O'Brien

  What Matters, Matter, Imaginative

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• The other me, who did not mean to drown herself, went under the sea and remained there for a long time. Eventually she surfaced near Japan and people gave her gifts but she had been so long under the sea she did not recognize what they were. She is a sly one. Mostly at night we commune. Night. Harbinger of dream and nightmare and bearer of omens which defy the music of words. In the morning the fear of her going is very real and very alarming. It can make one tremble. Not that she cares. She is the muse. I am the messenger.

  Edna O'Brien

  Dream, Morning, Real

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• My hand does the work and I dont have to think; in fact, were I to think, it would stop the flow. Its like a dam in the brain that bursts.

  Edna O'Brien

  Thinking, Hands, Brain

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• Later as the day cools and they have gone in, the cry of the corncrake will carry across those same fields and over the lake to the blue-hazed mountain, such a lonely evening sound to it, like the lonely evening sound of the mothers, saying it is not our fault that we weep so, it is nature's fault that makes us first full, then empty.

  Edna O'Brien

  Beautiful, Mother, Lonely

  Edna O'Brien (2007). “The Light of Evening”, p.7, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I know the mistake I am making. I see the exits in life.

  Edna O'Brien

  Mistake, Exit, Knows

  Edna O'Brien (1985). “A Fanatic Heart: Selected Stories of Edna O'Brien”, Plume

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• Movie people are possessed by demons, but a very low form of demons.

  Edna O'Brien

  People, Demon, Form

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• Oh, love, what an unreasoning creature it grew to be.

  Edna O'Brien

  Grew, Creatures

  Edna O'Brien (2012). “Country Girl”, p.47, Faber & Faber

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• She was an auxiliary nurse but training to be a true nurse because that was her calling, to serve mankind. She was a Martha. There were Marys and Marthas, but Marys got all the limelight because of being Christ's handmaiden, but Marthas were far more sincere.

  Edna O'Brien

  Nurse, Training, Calling

  Edna O'Brien (2007). “The Light of Evening”, p.41, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• It was the first time that I came face to face with madness and feared it and was fascinated by it.

  Edna O'Brien

  Faces, Firsts, Madness

  Edna O'Brien (2012). “Country Girl”, p.26, Faber & Faber

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• Wherever there were horses or ponies the mushrooms always sprang up.

  Edna O'Brien

  Horse, Mushrooms, Ponies

  Edna O'Brien (2007). “The Light of Evening”, p.27, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• If the Holy Communion touched my teeth, I thought that was a mortal sin

  Edna O'Brien

  Teeth, Sin, Holy

  Edna O'Brien (2011). “Saints and Sinners”, p.9, Faber & Faber

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• I knew I had done something awful. I had killed love, before I even knew the enormity of what love meant.

  Edna O'Brien

  Love Is, Done, Awful

  Edna O'Brien (2012). “Country Girl”, p.39, Faber & Faber

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• When you fall in love, it is spring no matter when. Leaves falling make no difference, they are from another season.

  Edna O'Brien

  Falling In Love, Spring, Differences

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