117 Quotes by Edna O'Brien

Writers are always anxious, always on the run--from the telephone, from responsibilities, from the distractions of the world.

It is impossible to capture the essence of love in writing, only its symptoms remain, the erotic absorption, the huge disparity between the times together and the times apart, the sense of being excluded.

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

Love . . . is like nature, but in reverse; first it fruits, then it flowers, then it seems to wither, then it goes deep, deep down into its burrow, where no one sees it, where it is lost from sight, and ultimately people die with that secret buried inside their souls.

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

In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things.

Darkness is drawn to light, but light does not know it; light must absorb the darkness and therefore meet its own extinguishment.

I was lonelier than I should be, for a woman in love, or half in love.

Books everywhere. On the shelves and on the small space above the rows of books and all along the floor and under chairs, books that I have read, books that I have not read.