7 Quotes & Sayings By Richard Kearney

Richard Kearney was born in Dublin, Ireland. He is the author of five previous novels, as well as numerous short stories and poetry. He has also written for radio, television and film. His work has been translated into twelve languages Read more

His first novel, "The Last Villain", was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize in 1990. That same year, his novel "The Glorious Heresies" won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. "The Unfortunates" won him the French Prix du Roman d'Aventure and "The Dancer of God" was a finalist for the Orange Prize.

1
If it is indeed the business of imagination to make politics distrust itself - reminding it that its principles are not literal facts but constructs of imagination - it is also its business to encourage politics to remake itself by remaking its images of the good life. Richard Kearney
2
Clearly, imagining cannot be expected to mean exactly the same thing today as it did in the Middle Ages or antiquity. For one thing, Aristotle and Aquinas never watched television. Richard Kearney
3
While food makes us live, stories are what make our lives worth living. Richard Kearney
4
If we possess narrative sympathy - enabling us to see the world from other's point of view - we cannot kill. If we do not, we cannot love. Richard Kearney
5
Narrative is an open-ended invitation to ethical and poetical responsiveness. Storytelling invites us to become not just agents of our own lives, but narrators and readers as well. It shows us that the untold life is not worth living. There will always be someone there to say, 'tell me a story', and someone there to respond. Were this not so, we would no longer be fully human. Richard Kearney
6
If it is true that we cannot possess knowledge of what is good in any absolute sense, it is equally true that we have an ethical duty to decide between what is better and what is worse. Richard Kearney