Maeve Binchy Quotes

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

I'll understand if you don't want me. But I will be heartbroken. You are all I ever dreamed of and hoped for. You are much, much more. Please know that I didn't think I was mean-minded. But I realize I am. I don't want you to put your arms around me and say it's all right, that you forgive me. I want you to be sure that you do, and my love for you will last as long as I live. I can see no lightness, no humour, no joke to make. I just hope that we will be able to go back to when we had laughter, and the world was coloured, not black and white and grey. I am so sorry for hurting you. I could inflict all kinds of pain on myself, but it would not take back any I gave to you. - David Power

We're nothing if we're not loved. When you meet somebody who is more important to you than yourself, that has to be the most important thing in life, really. And I think we are all striving for it in different ways. I also believe very, very strongly that everybody is the hero/heroine of his/her own life. I try to make my characters kind of ordinary, somebody that anybody could be. Because we've all had loves, perhaps love and loss, people can relate to my characters

I look placid, you see, that's why people think I'm fine. Inside I worry a lot.

Any one could write a book," said the taxi driver. "Yes, they could, but they DON'T," said Maeve Binchy

She put her head down on the table and cried all the tears that she knew she should have cried in the past year and a half. But they weren't ready then, they were now.

It was so silly to try to define things by words. What did one person mean by infatuation or obsession and another mean by love. The whole thing couldn't be tidied away with neat little labels." - Lena Gray

If you had your time all over again....? She was keen to know. You can't rewrite history. I have no idea what I'd do.

It’s a funny old world. Once you realize that, you’re halfway there.

Who knows what light housework means? One nun’s light could be another nun’s penal servitude.

Writing is a bit like going on a diet; you should either tell everyone or no one.

You can’t marry an ungenerous man; there’s no joy in his soul.

Wasn’t it hard that you did so much for children and loved them so deeply and they seemed so indifferent to you in return?

How will I explain it all … to everybody?” “You know, people don’t have to explain things nearly as much as you think they do.

But an intelligent man like you would know that to live in an unrealistic hope is a very foolish way to spend a life." - Lena Gray

Listen to me, Ria. It will be different when you and I have a home. It will be a real home, one that people will want to come running back to.

Is there anything more harsh in this life than to be misjudged, and have one’s motives entirely misunderstood?

Lately she’d been listening to books on tapes, fat womanly novels as she thought of them. Maeve Binchy, Gail Godwin, Marian Keyes. Pat Conroy—

She said that it was dangerous to try to know somebody too well. People should have their own reserves, she said, the places they went in their minds, where no one else should follow.

The day she realized that there were many ways to go, and Mother’s was only one way. Not necessarily the right way, and not at all the wrong way. Just one of the many ways ahead.

It was true what they had been saying: if people remember you, then you're not dead. It was very comforting.

Stop thinking like Alice in Wonderland, Celia told herself sternly. You're a grown-up, it's no use shutting your eyes, wishing things would happen

...And he said nothing. Just put his arms around her more closely as the whole heart clinic and their friends and relations danced to the music of "Hey Jude".

It was quite possible that she had lost the capacity to love and care anymore and that this is how she was going to be for the rest of her life.

do you know the land where the lemon-trees blossom;where the golden oranges glow in the dark foliage''.

She soon called a halt to the work. Judy's great success was that she stopped her helpers before they got tired.

He thought about how life never turns out like you think and hope it will.

well. The term “frocky” was used a lot as a derogatory description for women that Eileen and Stephanie thought were dressing just to please male egos. Yet

In my experience, lights at the end of the tunnel tend to flicker out.

There were women who fussed about their homes as if they thought life were a permanent examination where they would be found wanting.

It’s what people do is important, not what they say or feel.

Problems don’t solve themselves neatly like that, due to a set of coincidences. Problems are solved by making decisions. Erika had always said that, and he had thought she was being doctrinaire. But it was true. Deciding not to change anything was a decision in itself. He hadn’t fully understood this before.

Books saw her through the pupal stage of thirteen to sixteen, frowning at Kafka and Woolf, then tearing through John Irving and Maeve Binchy, widely read in the proper sense, making no distinction between Jilly Cooper and Edith Wharton. There were stories on film and TV and, a little later, in the rolling melodrama of the internet, but those were team activities, noisy and social. Private, intimate, a book was something she could pull around and over herself, like a quilt.

The rage she felt was a real thing, you could almost take it out of her and see it, like a red mist.

Her life was like her house—a colorful fantasy where anything was possible if you wanted it badly enough.

He called everyone sweetheart. There was nothing particularly special about it.

Benny knew she was sounding very peculiar but conversation of any kind made her feel less anxious. It filled that great empty echo chamber of anxiety she felt

He had not known it was possible to love a little human being as he loved Annie.

A silly idea about a book of blessings couldn’t really work. Not seriously.

God, Benny, don’t blow your nose like that in the church. You’d lift half the congregation out of their seats,” Patsy warned.

There was no way of telling the story without paraphrasing it as a Maeve Binchy novel.

Maeve Binchy

Eve showed Aidan how to rake the range. “I think when we’re married we might have something more modern,” he grumbled. “No, surely with the eight children we can have them stoking it, going up the chimney even.

far, although husbands who have terrible accidents are usually received warmly (extra points if he dies, and she finds love again). Maeve Binchy is popular for a while, until Margene, who in another life had been an investment

2. Men like women without make-up. They don’t. They like extremely well and carefully made-up women whose skin has that expensive cultured look which comes from three hours at the dressing table. A woman who is really without make-up would frighten them to death. They regard blotches as eczema, and uneven colouring as a sign of tertiary syphilis.

how much better Guinness tasted when drunk by the River Liffey in great quantities.

To heal would be to open the wound,examine it and forgive

What part of the human mind or body was so inefficient that it could make you think you loved someone so wildly unsuitable?

I don’t think we should spend any time wandering around that remote possibility. It’s nice of you to wish me well, but actually I find it unbearably patronizing.

She told them to read a poem every day and think about it, and whenever they went to a new place, to find out about its history and what had made it the place it had become.

Out by that ocean, you feel smaller, less important, somehow; it puts things into proportion

Most people had nobody to share excitements and to celebrate with.

people don’t have to explain things nearly as much as you think they do.

Always she had sounded sympathetic, always she had appeared to understand. But inside there was a bit of her that said that they couldn't have tried hard enough. If Celia had a daughter who was desperately unhappy at school and who had lost four stone in weight, she wouldn't hang around --she'd try to cope with it. If she had a father who couldn't cope she'd have him to live with her. Only now was she beginning to realize that it was not to be so simple. People had minds of their own. And her mother's mind was like a hermetically sealed box in a vault of a bank.

There are some things that are neither right nor wrong. You can’t have rules laid down for. Would you understand that?” “Yes,” Clare said immediately, “I would. Like the Holy Ghost.” “Like what?” “Like the Holy Ghost. We have to believe in Him without understanding Him. He’s not a bird and He’s not a great wind. He’s something though, and that should be enough without understanding it.” “I don’t think that’s the same at all,” said Agnes, troubled. “But if it helps you to understand the problems of trade in a small town, then for heaven’s sake, use

the situation. First time in the country and she had found St. Jarlath’s Crescent with no difficulty. “You must be Noel. I hope I’m not too early for the household.” “No, we were all up. We’re about to go to work, you see, and you are very welcome, by the way.” “Thank you. Well, shall I come in and say hello and good-bye to them?” Noel realized that he might have left her forever on the doorstep, but then he was only half awake. It took him until about eleven a.m., when he had his first vodka and Coke, to be fully in control of the day. Noel was absolutely certain that nobody at Hall’s knew of his morning injection of alcohol and

He smiled at her, handsome Alan, who was always used to getting his own way. He hadn’t changed. Alan, who was already as faithless to Cinta as he had been to her. Suddenly, like a focus in binoculars, everything became clear. This was a man worth spending not one more minute thinking about, second-guessing or trying to understand.

There had been wonderful news from the convent. Mother Clare had broken her hip. Not that Mother Frances called it wonderful news, but it did mean that she would need to be near a hospital and physiotherapy, and all the stairs and the walking in St. Mary's wouldn't be advisable. Mother Frances was in the middle of the thirty days prayer when this happened. She told Eve that it was her biggest crisis of faith yet. Could the prayer be too powerful?

Angela was being reassuring. Someone must have been getting at the child. Wouldn’t you think they’d be delighted to see someone try to get on? Give some encouragement and support. But it had never been the way. “I do worry a bit. I don’t want to be abnormal.” Clare was solemn. “Well, I hope you’re not bigheaded enough to think that you’re something special. That would be a sin of Pride you know.” “I suppose so.” “You can know it, not suppose it. It’s there in black and white in the catechism. The two great sins against Hope are Pride and Despair. You mustn’t get drawn toward either of them.

Here, you can read the letter. . . . See if you know what he wants. See if you know what I’m meant to do.” Angela didn’t reach out to take the ill-written pages on their lined paper. She sat with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. There was a silence for a while. “I don’t need to read the letter. I know what he wants,” Angela said eventually. “He wants you to make the decisions. He wants you to take on the responsibility.” Clare was surprised. “Why?” “Because you’re not Chrissie, who wouldn’t know what day it was, and you’re not your mother who would cry her eyes out, and you’re not your father who would get into a temper and you’re not Ben and Jim who are too young to be taken into account. And because you’re bright and got a scholarship, that’s going to fit you and make you ready for any burden from now on.

Suggested Reading Atkinson, Kate. Behind the Scenes at the Museum; Binchy, Maeve. Tara Road, The Copper Beech, and Evening Class; Bloom, Amy. Come to Me; Edwards, Kim. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter; Ferris, Joshua. The Unnamed; Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl; Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Franzen, Jonathan. The Corrections; Ganesan, Indira. Inheritance; Hanilton, Jane. Disobedience; Jonasson, Jonas. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared; Joyce, Rachel. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry; Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees; Mapson, Jo-Ann, The Owl & Moon Cafe; McEwan, Ian. Atonement; Miller, Arthur. All My Sons; Morrison, Toni. Love; O’Neill, Eugene. Long Day’s Journey into Night; Pekkanen, Sarah. The Opposite of Me; Porter, Andrew. In Between Days; Quindlen, Anna. Blessings and One True Thing; Rosenfeld, Lucinda. The Pretty One; Sittenfeld, Curtis. Sisterland; Smith, Ali. There But For The; Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club; Tyler, Anne. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant; White, Karen. The Time Between; Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway; Yates, Richard. The Easter Parade.

didn’t know whether or not she

Yaşamın olduğu yerde umut vardır.

Bu kitap çok özel biri için yazıldı…. SENİN İÇİN” NOT: Küçük öykülerden oluşan bir kitap hayatın aslında sadece bizim için olduğunu, bakarken görmediklerimizi, kendimizi bazen önemsemeyip başkalarına daha çok önem verdiğimizi küçük hikayelerle beynimize kazıyor. Evet SADECE BİZİM İÇİN olmalı gerçekten. Bu hayat sadece bizim , kendimize en çok zararı biz veririz bunu düşünüp mutlu olacağımız şeyleri yaşamalı yapmalıyız. Bazen başkasına gösterdiğimiz nezaket bile , kendimizi ikinci plana atmaya yeter. Bunları hayatımızdan çıkarabilir miyiz. Bilmiyorum ama çıkarabilsek ve sadece kendimiz için yaşasak, yada etrafımızdaki her şeyi çok net görebilsek, doğru anlayıp kendimizi gereksiz yere üzmesek…. Bizi sevenlerle sevdiklerimizle karşılıksız umarsız sevgi dolu bir dünyaya… “Yaşamın olduğu yerde umut vardır.” “Hayat bir prova değil. Atlıkarıncaya sadece bir kez binme hakkımız var.” “Günlük koşuşturmaların arasında biraz nefes alman ve kendini şımartman için. Tüm özel günlerin kutlu olsun

Bu kitap çok özel biri için yazıldı…. SENİN İÇİN” “Yaşamın olduğu yerde umut vardır.” “Hayat bir prova değil. Atlıkarıncaya sadece bir kez binme hakkımız var.” “Günlük koşuşturmaların arasında biraz nefes alman ve kendini şımartman için. Tüm özel günlerin kutlu olsun

his man” with his

A quiet man, wearing those shorts that only Americans wore, shorts that did nothing for the bottom or the legs, but only pointed out the ridiculous nature of the human figure.

You know how sorry he is Nan. You must know how he’d give any of us the moon after he’s been—not himself.” “It’s too high a price to pay for the moon,

like

It was so silly to try to define things by words, she had said. What did one person mean by infatuation or obsession and another mean by love. The whole thing couldn’t be tidied away with neat little labels.

Her instinct was to go out to see what was wrong. Perhaps he had been taken ill. But then she remembered the cold, dead look in Lena’s face earlier in the day. This was the end of the road for them, Ivy knew it now. Eventually Louis recovered himself and went on up the stairs. Ernest was happily looking at the television set. ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ Ivy said. She was restless now; she couldn’t concentrate.

Now that her childbearing years were over he had discovered that he wanted to be a father. And he expected her to understand all this. Possibly even be glad for him. Louis Gray must be a man without any sensitivity at all. He must be lacking in any real brain as well. Perhaps he was a bit simple. Maybe that lopsided smile and those deep eyes were empty, meaningless things, not an indication of a loving soul.

I’ll tell you what’s brought it on – the behaviour of a man who has acted like a selfish bastard. You’ve thought of nobody but yourself, Louis, all the time … self, self, self.

You’re not bad-looking, Kit. Fellows are always saying that you look terrific. Could you sort of set yourself at him and get him. Distract him from Anna … then she’d come back to me.’ Her first instinct was to laugh. Kit McMahon, a Mata Hari who could attract the desire of any man away from a little blonde beauty like Anna Kelly!

Emmet, I love you. I’m so blind and stupid, thank you for waiting for me, for understanding.

Mary Paula had severe morning sickness and was in no mood to console him. He had to be particularly consolatory to her.

Then suddenly Stevie turned and went back to hug her too. ‘I’ll look after her, please believe me I’ll be good to her. If I thought I wouldn’t, I’d go away now.’ She was so surprised it nearly took her breath away. When they were on the bus she asked him: ‘Why did you do that?’ ‘I wanted to,’ he said. Then after a pause: ‘I got a funny feeling that I was never going to see her again.

The bile rose in Stevie’s throat as he heard the story unfold. How Mary Paula had first met him when he was driving it to a seminar. She had admired the man in the white Triumph. ‘I said to him, “That’s a nice car,” he said to me, “Let’s take it on a test drive then,”’ and neither of them had gone to the seminar at all. ‘Don’t tell that to my father-in-law, though,’ Louis whispered. ‘He might think I was unreliable.’ Mary Paula giggled. ‘And you’re not?’ Stevie said stonily. ‘No.’ Louis looked alarmed. The boy was looking at him oddly.

Slightly at a loss, Louis turned to talk to someone else. Young women didn’t normally walk away from him like that. Stevie had been watching; he saw the way Louis had laid his hand on Kit’s arm with his easy familiar charm. It had made Stevie rage inside.

You’ve been to Lough Glass.’ There was a pause. And then with a heavy menace he said: ‘And if you know what’s good for you I wouldn’t go again.’ Then he moved away. Louis had gone white. What did the fellow mean? He saw Stevie put his arm around Kit’s shoulder and she held his hand tightly. Kit McMahon, Lena’s daughter. And her boyfriend. But they didn’t know, for God’s sake. None of them knew.

Was Louis mean? He had always seemed the very spirit of generosity. When he had hardly sixpence left he would spend the coins he had on a bunch of violets. She couldn’t bear to think of Louis as mean. Anything else but that.

The public Louis was a man you couldn’t fault.

They hung there, the jackets she had bought for him, the shirts that she took to the Chinese laundry each week, the shoes that she polished until they shone. ‘Oh nonsense, I’m doing my own,’ she had said the first time he protested, and he hadn’t protested again. Of course she had done too much for him. But if she had done any less it would have ended long ago. Long before now. She felt a chill. Why did she think it was ending now?

It couldn’t possibly mean that his latest fling might be someone from Ireland. That would be too hurtful to imagine. Or someone that he was taking to Ireland on a magic trip. Some girl that he was going to impress with his fairytale ways in the Emerald Isle.

Things will always be desperate while old people don’t make any move to change them,’ Clio said.

Anna Kelly was sitting beside Emmet’s bed. She wore a white cardigan over a pale blue dress. Her blonde hair, like Clio’s, was shiny and the colour of corn. Stevie hadn’t realised that she was such an attractive little thing. ‘Well, well. Lucky Emmet. His own little Florence Nightingale,’ he said admiringly.

she said in a voice disguising her terror. She had seen real annoyance and impatience in his eyes.

It’s blackmail.’ ‘He says you can’t love someone properly without …’ ‘I bet he does.’ Kit sounded sarcastic.

She barely got to the bathroom basin in time to throw up. Louis and this girl, this girl whom he knew had been sent to his hotel by Lena.

Because we all do the same as our parents in the end. Your mother was glamorous and could have gone anywhere and done anything and yet she married your nice, safe father and came to live in a one-horse town like Lough Glass for security; you’ll do the same.’ ‘And what about you? Do you love Michael, Clio?’ ‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. What’s love?’ ‘I wish I knew that too,’ Kit spoke absently. She wondered was there any truth in what Clio said, that people did what their mothers did. If so, there was a stormy future ahead of Kit.

I wish I knew what you were planning to do with your life, Kit McMahon,’ Clio said. ‘So do I,’ Kit agreed fervently.

I don’t know. Maybe the fellow from my own home town. He’s very good looking, Stevie.’ Kit said this partly to put the glamorous Frankie in the position of knowing that Stevie was out of bounds, partly to convince herself. In her heart she knew that Stevie was cheap and obvious.

You’ve got a good man there,’ Ivy said to Lena. ‘Yes,’ Lena said. Ivy looked at her sharply. ‘Deep down he’s full of heart,’ Ivy insisted. Ivy, who knew how unfaithful he was, how hard she tried to entertain him. Ivy, who alone knew that they were not married, could be fooled by this little gesture of goodwill.

She watched the others looking at Louis, animated, handsome and the centre of attention. He was a sham, she thought angrily, he was a fraud and a con trick. Why had she wasted her life on him? Why was she not back in Lough Glass where she belonged with her family, with her children who needed her? What was she doing in this ridiculous house in London, working her guts out for an employment agency up the road, drinking a toast to Ivy and Ernest in a roomful of people she hardly knew? This was a Saturday night, she should be at home in Lough Glass. A terrible emptiness took hold of her. At home in Lough Glass doing what?

Jesus, half of Dublin seems to be from that one-horse town. Clio as well. Well, it sure breeds fine-looking women.’ His arms tightened a little around her. Kit was about to pull away when she saw Stevie Sullivan looking at her over Frankie’s shoulder. She didn’t pull away, instead she smiled up at Kevin. ‘Any tighter and I’ll put my knee up with a sudden jerk,’ she said, still smiling sweetly.

Then she wanted to tell them that Mary Paula had got herself hooked to a liar and deceiver in the international league. She wanted to say that she could tell them a story about their future brother-in-law and his deceptions that would make their pale greasy hair stand on end.

you’re trying to blackmail me.’ ‘I thought you were saying this might be an open line.

Stevie. He went up to the hotel and beat the living daylights out of Louis. He’s lost three teeth and he has a broken jaw.

But there it was again. His face, handsome, petulant, impatient, the way he was when he didn’t get what he wanted. ‘Get out of here, Louis,’ she said aloud. ‘I’ve nothing to lose now,’ Louis said. ‘I’ll bring you down with me, you’ll be sorry you didn’t listen to me. I’ve nothing to lose.’ There was a huge truck. The lights of a truck and a terrible shattering of glass and … Then there was nothing.

Life went on. And it was quite usual to see young people taking a boat out over the quiet water of the lake in Lough Glass at night. Stevie and Kit took the little box of ashes and sprinkled it in the water. The moon was high in the sky and they didn’t feel sad. It wasn’t really a funeral. All that was over, in London and years ago … the first time. This wasn’t a sad thing, it was just the right thing to do.