Life, after all, was a secret with the self. The more one gave out, the less there remained for the center--that center which she coveted for herself and recognized instantly in others. Fruits had it, the very heart of, say, a cherry, where the true worth and flavor lay. Some of course were flawed or hollow in there. Many, in fact.
Edna O'BrienI knew I had done something awful. I had killed love, before I even knew the enormity of what love meant.
Edna O'BrienIn every question and every remark tossed back and forth between lovers who have not played out the last fugue, there is one question and it is this: Is there someone new?
Edna O'BrienTo live with the work and the letters of James Joyce was an enormous privilege and a daunting education. Yes, I came to admire Joyce even more because he never ceased working, those words and the transubstantiation of words obsessed him. He was a broken man at the end of his life, unaware that Ulysses would be the number one book of the twentieth century and, for that matter, the twenty-first.
Edna O'Brien