1
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.Edna OBrien
2
Writers are always anxious, always on the run--from the telephone, from responsibilities, from the distractions of the world.Edna OBrien
3
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.Edna OBrien
4
That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.Edna OBrien
6
Darkness is drawn to light, but light does not know it; light must absorb the darkness and therefore meet its own extinguishment.Edna OBrien
7
The words ran away with me.Edna OBrien
8
I was lonelier than I should be, for a woman in love, or half in love.Edna OBrien
9
When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.Edna OBrien
10
If the Holy Communion touched my teeth, I thought that was a mortal sinEdna OBrien
11
In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things.Edna OBrien
12
Fiction should be in its way subversive. I don't think books should be neat or gentle or genteel or comforting. I think they should be raw. They should be written as perfectly as possible, but what they do is to stir up, to lance the reader.Edna OBrien
13
If we are taken all together, we might muster some courage, but from the previous evidence it is likely that we will be taken separately.Edna OBrien
14
In a way winter is the real spring the time when the inner things happen the resurge of nature.Edna OBrien
15
When something has been perfect there is a tendency to try hard to repeat it.Edna OBrien