190 Quotes by Maeve Binchy

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.

Success is not like a cake that needs to be divided. It’s more like a heap of stones – a cairn. If someone is successful, they add a stone to the cairn. It gets very high and can be seen from all over the world. That’s how I see it.

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

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.

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

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

Happiness is in our own hearts. I have no regrets of anything in the past. I’m totally cheerful and happy, and I think that a lot of your attitude is not in the circumstances you find yourself in, but in the circumstances you make for yourself.

I didn’t get excited by weight loss, and since I was already happy being fat, I couldn’t see the point of it all. I’m 6 ft. and weigh about 18 st. or 19 st., but weighing myself is not something I do with much pleasure.

I was the big, bossy older sister, full of enthusiasms, mad fantasies, desperate urges to be famous, and anxious to be a saint – a settled sort of saint, not one who might have to suffer or die for her faith.