Claire Keegan Quotes

Many's the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.

It seemed both proper and at the same time deeply unfair that so much of life was left to chance.

Why were the things that were closest so often the hardest to see?

As they carried along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?

You don’t ever have to say anything,’ he says. ‘Always remember that as a thing you need never do. Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.

he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another?

My heart feels not so much in my chest as in my hands. I am carrying it along swiftly, as though I have become the messenger for what is going on inside me.

I am in a spot where I can neither be what I always am nor turn into what I could be.

Before long, he caught a hold of himself and concluded that nothing ever did happen again; to each was given days and chances which wouldn’t come back around. And wasn’t it sweet to be where you were and let it remind you of the past for once, despite the upset, instead of always looking on into the mechanics of the days and the trouble ahead, which might never come.

The worst was yet to come, he knew. Already he could feel a world of trouble waiting for him behind the next door, but the worst that could have happened was also already behind him; the thing not done, which could have been – which he would have had to live with for the rest of his life.

Neither one of us talks, the way people sometimes don’t when they are happy – but as soon as I have this thought, I realise its opposite is also true.

It was easy to understand why women feared men with their physical strength and lust and social powers, but women, with their canny intuitions, were so much deeper: they could predict what was to come long before it came, dream it overnight, and read your mind.

This water is cool and clean as anything I have ever tasted; it tastes of my father leaving, of him never having been there, of having nothing after he was gone.

— Everything changes into something else, turns into some version of what it was before.

Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what is coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.

She wants to find the good in others, and sometimes her way of finding that is to trust them, hoping she’ll not be disappointed, but she sometimes is.

Always it was the same, Furlong thought; always they carried mechanically on without pause, to the next job at hand. What would life be like, he wondered, if they were given time to think and reflect over things? Might their lives be different or much the same – or would they just lose the run of themselves?

It's too good, she is. She wants to find the good in others, and sometimes her way of finding that is to trust them, hoping she'll not be disappointed but she sometimes is.

I will learn fifteen types of wind and know the weight of tomorrow's rain by the rustle in the sycamores.

It’s a hard feeling but as we walk along I begin to settle and let the difference between my life at home and the one I have here be.

Where there’s a secret,’ she says, ‘there’s shame – and shame is something we can do without.

But it cut him, all the same, to see one of his own so upset by the sight of what other children craved and he could not help but wonder if she'd be brave enough or able for what the world had in store.

He thought of Mrs Wilson, of her daily kindnesses, of how she had corrected and encouraged him, of the small things she had said and done and had refused to do and say and what she must have known, the things which, when added up, amounted to a life. Had it not been for her, his mother might very well have wound up in that place. In an earlier time, it could have been his own mother he was saving – if saving was what this could be called. And only God knew what would have happened to him, where he might have ended up.

Maybe the way back will somehow make sense of the coming.

Hasn’t everyone to be born somewhere,’ Furlong said. ‘Sure wasn’t Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

Where does thinking get us?’ she said. ‘All thinking does is bring you down.

What was it all for? Furlong wondered. The work and the constant worry. Getting up in the dark and going to the yard, making the deliveries, one after another, the whole day long, then coming home in the dark and trying to wash the black off himself and sitting into a dinner at the table and falling asleep before waking in the dark to meet a version of the same thing, yet again. Might things never change or develop into something else, or new?

- 'Ah, the women are nearly always right, all the same,' he says. 'Do you know what the women have a gift for?' - 'What?' - 'Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what's coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.

Everything changes into something else, turns into some version of what it was before.

The years don’t slow down any as they pass.

You don’t ever have to say anything,” he says. “Always remember that as a thing you need never do. Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.

At first, I struggled with some of the bigger words, but Kinsella kept his fingernail under each, patiently, until I guessed it or half-guessed it and then I did this by myself until I no longer needed to guess, and read on. It was like learning to ride the bike; I felt myself taking off, the freedom of going places I couldn’t have gone before, and it was easy.

Stack, like every man who has never known a woman, believed he knew a great deal about women.

Neden şefkat, yaralanmaktan daha çok incitir insanı?

Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.

What it is to be a man,’ she said, ‘and to have days off.

That's the way it is in our house, everybody knowing things but pretending they don't.

What would life be like, he wondered, if they were given time to think and reflect over things.

he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?

The next year, when he’d won first prize for spelling and was given a wooden pencil-case whose sliding top doubled as a ruler, Mrs Wilson had rubbed the top of his head and praised him, as though he was one of her own. ‘You’re a credit to yourself,’ she’d told him. And for a whole day or more, Furlong had gone around feeling a foot taller, believing, in his heart, that he mattered as much as any other child.

People could be good, Furlong reminded himself, as he drove back to town; it was a matter of learning how to manage and balance the give-and-take in a way that let you get on with others as well as your own. But as soon as the thought came to him, he knew the thought itself was privileged and wondered why he hadn’t given the sweets and other things he’d been gifted at some of the houses to the less well-off he had met in others. Always, Christmas brought out the best and the worst in people.

He thought of Mrs Wilson, of her daily kindnesses, of how she had corrected and encouraged him, of the small things she had said and done and had refused to do and say and what she must have known, the things which, when added up, amounted to a life.

As soon as she says this, I realize she is just like everyone else, and wish I was back at home so that all the things I do not understand could be the same as they always are.

... iki insan hayatın herhangi bir anında bir şeyi nadiren aynı anda ister. Bazen insan olmanın en zor yanı budur.

Always, Christmas brought out the best and the worst in people.

How still it was up here but why was it not ever peaceful?

It was a December of crows.

but the worst that could have happened was also already behind him; the thing not done,

It was like learning to ride the bike; I felt myself taking off, the freedom of going places I couldn’t have gone before, and it was easy.

Plants whose names my mother somehow found the time to teach me.

Furlong shook his head but bought a bag of the Lemon's jellies hanging on one of the hooks behind her head, as he did not like to go back out with one arm as long as the other.

And then the nights came on and the frosts took hold again, and blades of cold slid under doors and cut the knees off those who still knelt to say the rosary.

When he reached the yard gate and found the padlock seized with frost, he felt the strain of being alive and wished he had stayed in bed, but he made himself carry on and crossed to a neighbour’s house, whose light was on.

He has never understood the human compulsion for conversation: people, when they speak, say useless things that seldom if ever improve their lives. Their words make them sad. Why can't people stop talking and embrace each other?

My father used to tease me at the table by implying that “cold Claire” had brought in the draft. I had three older sisters, all beautiful, and I was always less affected than them, slow to smile. I remember finding it extremely hard to open presents as a child because the requisite theatricality was too exhausting. My sisters forever humiliated me over a moment in fifth grade when I’d opened a present from my grandmother and declared, straight-faced, “I already have this.

She puts her arm around me. ‘You’re just too young to understand.’ As soon as she says this, I realise she is just like everyone else, and wish I was back at home so that all the things I do not understand could be the same as they always are.

Eileen was fast asleep, and for a while he watched over her, feeling the need of her, letting his gaze idle over her bare shoulder, her open, sleeping hands, the soot-black darkness of her hair against the pillowslip. The longing to stay, to reach out and touch her was deep, but he took his shirt and trousers from the chair and dressed in the dark, without her waking.

The night you asked me to marry you, you bought cherries at Lidl and told me they cost you six euros.” “So?” “You know what is at the heart of misogyny? When it comes down to it?” “So I’m a misogynist now?” “It’s simply about not giving,” she said. “Whether it’s not giving us the vote or not giving help with the dishes—it’s all clitched to the same wagon.” “Hitched,” Cathal said. “What?” “It’s not ‘clitched,’ ” he said. “It’s ‘hitched.’ ” “You see?” she said. “Isn’t this just more of the same? You knew exactly what I meant—but you cannot even give me this much.

Even while he’d been creaming the butter and sugar, his mind was not so much upon the here and now and on this Sunday nearing Christmas with his wife and daughters so much as on tomorrow and who owed what, and how and when he’d deliver what was ordered and what man he’d leave to which task, and how and where he’d collect what was owed – and before tomorrow was coming to an end, he knew his mind would already be working in much the same way, yet again, over the day that was to follow.

See, there’s three lights now where there was only two before.’ I look out across the sea. There, the two lights are blinking as before, but with another, steady light, shining in between. ‘Can you see it?’ he says. ‘I can,’ I say. ‘It’s there.’ And that is when he puts his arms around me and gathers me into them as though I were his own.

That was the problem with women falling out of love; the veil of romance fell away from their eyes, and they looked in and could read you.

he felt the strain of being alive and wished he had stayed in bed,

It was easy to understand why women feared men with their physical strength and lust and social powers, but women, with their canny intuitions, were so much deeper:

It would be the easiest thing in the world to lose everything,

I have learned enough, grown enough, to know that what happened is not something I need ever mention.

She says what she has to say, and no more. May there be many like her,

If you want to get on in life, there’s things you have to ignore, so you can keep on.

Where does thinking get us?’ she said. ‘All thinking does is bring you down. <...> If you want to get on in life there's things in life you have to ignore so that you can keep on.

To be an adult was, for the greatest part, to be in darkness.

There’s pleasure to be had in history. What’s recent is another matter and painful to recall.

How light and tall he almost felt walking along with this girl at his side and some fresh, new, unrecognisable joy in his heart. Was it possible that the best bit of him was shining forth, and surfacing? Some part of him, whatever it could be called – was there any name for it? – was going wild, he knew. The fact was that he would pay for it but never once in his whole and unremarkable life had he known a happiness akin to this, not even when his infant girls were first placed in his arms and he had heard their healthy, obstinate cries.

My heart does not so much feel that it is in my chest as in my hands, and that I am carrying it along swiftly, as though I have become the messenger for what is going on inside of me.

What would life be like, he wondered, if they were given time to think and reflect over things? Might their lives be different or much the same – or would they just lose the run of themselves?

The worst was yet to come, he knew. Already he could feel a world of trouble waiting for him behind the next door, but the worst that could have happened was also already behind him; the thing not done, which could have been – which he would have had to live with for the rest of his life. Whatever suffering he was now to meet was a long way from what the girl at his side had already endured, and might yet surpass.

Her hands are like my mother's hands but there is something else in them too, something I have never felt before and have no name for. I feel at such a loss for words but this is a new place, and new words are needed.

Ah, the women are nearly always right, all the same,’ he says. ‘Do you know what the women have a gift for?’ ‘What?’ ‘Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what’s coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.

It is something I am used to, this way men have of not talking: they like to kick a divot out of the grass with a boot heel, to slap the roof of a car before it takes off, to spit, to sit with their legs wide apart, as though they do not care.

She watched the clock on the bedside table, the red numbers changing. The cat was watching her, his eyes dark as apple seeds. She thought of Antarctica, the snow and ice and the bodies of dead explorers. Then she thought of hell, and then eternity.

in the mechanics of the ordinary, working week. Sundays could feel very threadbare, and raw. Why could he not relax and enjoy them like other men who took a pint or two after Mass before falling asleep at the fire with the newspaper, having eaten a plate of dinner?

- 'Have you been to a wake before?' Mrs. Kinsella asks. - 'I don't think so.' - 'Well, I might as well tell you: there will be a dead man in a coffin and lots of people and some of them might have a little too much taken.' - 'What will they be taking?' - 'Drink,' she says

What was it all for? Furlong wondered. The work and the constant worry. Getting up in the dark and going to the yard, making the deliveries, one after another, the whole day long, then coming home in the dark and trying to wash the black off himself and sitting into a dinner at the table and falling asleep before waking in the dark to meet a version of the same thing, yet again. Might things never change or develop into something else, or new? Lately, he had begun to wonder what mattered, apart from Eileen and the girls. He was touching forty but didn’t feel himself to be getting anywhere or making any kind of headway and could not but sometimes wonder what the days were for.

This was no coincidence. The best short stories and the most successful jokes have a lot in common. Each form relies on suggestion and economy. Characters have to be drawn in a few deft strokes. There's generally a setup, a reveal, a reversal, and a release. The structure is delicate. If one element fails, the edifice crumbles. In a novel you might get away with a loose line or two, a saggy paragraph, even a limp chapter. But in the joke and in the short story, the beginning and end are precisely anchored tent poles, and what lies between must pull so taut it twangs. I'm not sure if there is any pattern to these selections. I did not spend a lot of time with those that seemed afraid to tell stories, that handled plot as if it were a hair in the soup, unwelcome and embarrassing. I also tended not to revisit stories that seemed bleak without having earned it, where the emotional notes were false, or where the writing was tricked out or primped up with fashionable devices stressing form over content. I do know that the easiest and the first choices were the stories to which I had a physical response. I read Jennifer Egan's "Out of Body" clenched from head to toe by tension as her suicidal, drug-addled protagonist moves through the Manhattan night toward an unforgivable betrayal. I shed tears over two stories of childhood shadowed by unbearable memory: "The Hare's Mask," by Mark Slouka, with its piercing ending, and Claire Keegan's Irishinflected tale of neglect and rescue, "Foster." Elizabeth McCracken's "Property" also moved me, with its sudden perception shift along the wavering sightlines of loss and grief. Nathan Englander's "Free Fruit for Young Widows" opened with a gasp-inducing act of unexpected violence and evolved into an ethical Rubik's cube. A couple of stories made me laugh: Tom Bissell's "A Bridge Under Water," even as it foreshadows the dissolution of a marriage and probes what religion does for us, and to us; and Richard Powers's "To the Measures Fall," a deftly comic meditation on the uses of literature in the course of a life, and a lifetime. Some stories didn't call forth such a strong immediate response but had instead a lingering resonance. Of these, many dealt with love and its costs, leaving behind indelible images. In Megan Mayhew Bergman's "Housewifely Arts," a bereaved daughter drives miles to visit her dead mother's parrot because she yearns to hear the bird mimic her mother's voice. In Allegra Goodman's "La Vita Nuova," a jilted fiancée lets her art class paint all over her wedding dress. In Ehud Havazelet's spare and tender story, "Gurov in Manhattan," an ailing man and his aging dog must confront life's necessary losses. A complicated, only partly welcome romance blossoms between a Korean woman and her demented

A taste of cut grass blew in, and every now and then a warm breeze played with the ivy on the ledge. When a shadow crossed, he looked out: a gulp of swallows skirmishing, high up, in camaraderie. Down on the lawns, some people were out sunbathing and there were children, and beds plump with flowers; so much of life carrying smoothly on, despite the tangle of human conflicts and the knowledge of how everything must end.

Something about this story now put the woman in mind of how she had been at another point in her life, when she was falling out of love with a separated man who had said he wanted her to live with him, a man who often said the opposite of what he felt, as though the saying of it would make it true, or hide the fact that it was not. 'I love you,' he often said. 'There is nothing I would not do for you,' he often said also.

Driving up to the convent, the reflection of Furlong’s headlights crossed the windowpanes and it felt as though he was meeting himself there. Quietly as he could he drove past the front door and reversed down the side, to the coal shed, and turned the engine off. Sleepily, he climbed out and looked over the yews and hedges, the grotto with its statue of Our Lady, whose eyes were downcast as though she was disappointed by the artificial flowers at her feet, and the frost glittering in places where patches of light from the high windows fell.

A tender speech is combing through the willows. In a bare whisper, the elms lean. Something about the place conjures up the ancient past: the hound, the spear, the spinning wheel. There's pleasure to be had in history.

and before tomorrow was coming to an end, he knew his mind would already be working in much the same way, yet again, over the day that was to follow.

Many's the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing (page 64)

What was it all for? Furlong wondered. The work and the constant worry. Getting up in the dark and going to the yard, making deliveries, one after another, the whole day long, then coming home in the dark and trying to wash the black off himself and sitting into a dinner at the table and falling asleep before waking in the dark to meet a version of the same thing, yet again. Might things never change or develop into something else, or new?

Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what’s coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.

Enseguida recuperó el control y llegó a la conclusión de que nunca se volvía a lo que había pasado; a cada uno se le daban días y oportunidades que no volvían a tenerse. ¿No era acaso agradable estar donde estabas y dejar que, por una vez, eso te recordara el pasado, a pesar del malestar, en lugar de estar siempre pendiente de la mecánica de los días y los problemas futuros, que tal vez nunca llegasen?

We must be doing something right.’ ‘Tis mostly your doing,’ Furlong admitted. ‘Where am I ever only away all day then home to the table and up to bed and gone again before they rise.

What was it all for? Furlong wondered. The work and the constant worry. Getting up in the dark and going to the yard, making the deliveries, one after another, the whole day long, then coming home in the dark and trying to wash the black off himself and sitting into a dinner at the table and falling asleep before waking in the dark to meet a version of the same thing, yet again.

It would be the easiest thing in the world to lose everything.

...was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?

So mancher Mann hat viel verloren, nur weil er eine perfekte Gelegenheit verpasst hat, nichts zu sagen.

Kinsella says a few meaningless things along the way then falls into the quiet way he has about him, and time passes without seeming to pass

Do you know what the women have a gift for?’ ‘What?’ ‘Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what’s coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.

God help you child. If you were mine, I'd never leave you in a house with strangers.

As they carried on along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?