“I had not the heart to tell her that great love stories told of the pain and separateness between men and women.” — Edna O'Brien Love Copy Share Image
“four of us slept in the one bed, two at the bottom and two at the top. All of us tossed and… — Edna O'Brien Sleep Copy Share Image
Irish Catholicism is very much founded on the stone of fear and of punishment. — Edna O'Brien Catholicism Copy Share Image
Countries are either mothers or fathers, and engender the emotional bristle secretly reserved for either sire. — Edna O'Brien Country Copy Share Image
“Horses are the ruination of everyone, your father has a craze for them but then we all do crazy things.” — Edna O'Brien Crazy things Copy Share Image
I did not sleep. I never do when I am over-happy, over-unhappy, or in bed with a strange man. — Edna O'Brien Bed Copy Share Image
When you fall in love, it is spring no matter when. Leaves falling make no difference, they are from another season. — Edna O'Brien Differences Copy Share Image
“That was the thing about America, people always moving on, so that a girl had to snap up a beau as fast… — Edna O'Brien America People Copy Share Image
what makes us so afraid is the thing we half see, or half hear, as in a wood at dusk, when a… — Edna O'Brien Animal Copy Share Image
“Jenny is super duper” was the answer back. Jenny knew how to humor the missus, calling her a slip of a girl… — Edna O'Brien Jenny Copy Share Image
“My friends I tell you this, we are a jolly group but put us in uniform and all that change. In war… — Edna O'Brien Brothers Copy Share Image
“The players were mostly seated, itching to begin, impatient men shuffling the packs of cards, a center lamp on each table, and… — Edna O'Brien Football Copy Share Image
“a mammy’s boy who never married and who keeps a shotgun in case of trespassers, but loves his trees, loves his woodland,… — Edna O'Brien Flower Copy Share Image
It is increasingly clear that the fate of the universe will come to depend more and more on individuals as the bungling… — Edna O'Brien Bureaucracy Copy Share Image
We all leave one another. We die, we change - it's mostly change - we outgrow our best friends; but even if… — Edna O'Brien Best friend Copy Share Image
“Oh dark woman With a shawl and ribs I could have served him better With my shanties. But men do love the… — Edna O'Brien Dark Copy Share Image
“Oh, God, who does not exist, you hate women, otherwise you'd have made them different. And Jesus, who snubbed your mother, you… — Edna O'Brien Foul language Copy Share Image
“The day I brought my suicide dream he got quite conversant. The dream was thus. I had gone to Holland to avail… — Edna O'Brien Dreams Copy Share Image
“I wish you’d come for six months. I seem to have got a big burst of energy writing this whereas sometimes I… — Edna O'Brien Different places Copy Share Image
“nerves and the toll of the shingles, telling her that the shingles made people depressed, that and other bull, how shingles took… — Edna O'Brien Long time Copy Share Image
“divide things equally between both children? If anything should happen to her she is appealing to him to honor this final wish.… — Edna O'Brien Children Copy Share Image
“Chrissie tried all the chairs, the armchairs, the high chairs, the spindle-back chairs, “Is that apple wood, is that tulip wood, is… — Edna O'Brien Smell Copy Share Image
To live with the work and the letters of James Joyce was an enormous privilege and a daunting education. Yes, I came… — Edna O'Brien Admire Copy Share Image
“That was Gabriel. I’d wronged him and he paid me back. I’d been told that he was going with another girl when… — Edna O'Brien Two friends Copy Share Image
I have always espoused chastity except when one can no longer resist the temptation. — Edna O'Brien Chastity Copy Share Image
shadows of love, inebriations of love, foretastes of love, trickles of love, but never yet the one true love. — Edna O'Brien Inebriation Copy Share Image
When something has been perfect, there is a tendency to try hard to repeat it. — Edna O'Brien Hard Copy Share Image
“Rusheen was theirs, the old faithful trees keeping watch and enough head of cattle to defray expenses for at least six months… — Edna O'Brien Flower Copy Share Image
“You might have written. Every bit of your daily life interests me. I wrote this day fortnight but it was returned. Tampered… — Edna O'Brien Daily life Copy Share Image
She said the reason that love is so painful is that it always amounts to two people wanting more than two people… — Edna O'Brien Giving Copy Share Image
it is not good to repudiate the dead because then they do not leave you alone, they are like dogs that bark… — Edna O'Brien Bark Copy Share Image
“I barely eat cake now. The one I’m sending you, make a hole on the top with a knitting needle and pour… — Edna O'Brien Copy Share Image
“I had clung to the fable of the Steppenwolf, believing that his redemption would also become mine.” — Edna O'Brien Copy Share Image
“it was then I cried, cried for the fact of not having cried and for the immensity of tears yet to be… — Edna O'Brien Cried Copy Share Image
Ordinary life bypassed me, but I also bypassed it. It couldn't have been any other way.Conventional life and conventional people are not… — Edna O'Brien Conventional Copy Share Image
“Michael, my darling light. Be sure to have Masses said for the repose of his soul and for us. Your loving mother,… — Edna O'Brien Loving mother Copy Share Image
Darkness is drawn to light, but light does not know it; light must absorb the darkness and therefore meet its own extinguishment. — Edna O'Brien Darkness Copy Share Image
“If I could feel like myself I’d thank God but I don’t feel and never will.” — Edna O'Brien Feel Copy Share Image
“He never studied, not a paper, not a textbook . . . the books he reads are the people that come to him,” — Edna O'Brien Book Copy Share Image
There was I, devouring books and yet allowing a man who had never read a book to walk me home for a… — Edna O'Brien Book Copy Share Image
