Maeve Binchy Quotes

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.

You say to yourself: 'What could people, in all these countries, find in my books?' and yet I think we're all the same, anywhere. Everybody is a hero or a dramatic person in their own story if you just know where to look.

My mother was a trained nurse, and she'd tell me that patients would fight as they were administered anaesthetic, grappling to get the gas mask off their face.

I think you've got to play the hand that you're dealt and stop wishing for another hand.

I've seen a lot of people buy my books and then fall asleep on the plane soon afterwards.

I had a very happy childhood, which is unsuitable if you're going to be an Irish writer.

Money doesn't make you happy, but it gives a zone of comfort around you.

I'm getting better, happier, and nicer as I grow older, so I would be terrific in a couple of hundred years time.

If I had my life to live all over again, I really think I would have been a fit person. Looking around me, I realise that the men and women who walked and ran and swam and played sport look better and feel better than the rest of us.

I believed that old people never laughed. I thought they sighed a lot and groaned. They walked with sticks, and they didn't like children on bicycles or roller skates or with big dogs.

The great thing about getting older is that you become more mellow. Things aren't as black and white, and you become much more tolerant. You can see the good in things much more easily rather than getting enraged as you used to do when you were young.

If you write what you know about, you will always be on safe ground. I am very edgy and nervous about going into territories I know nothing about. That's why you don't find much high finance, group sex, or yachting parties in my stories.

I have an irregular heartbeat, so that means a fair amount of medication - and I have blood pressure pills, too, but no vitamins or supplements.

I'm pleased to have outsold great writers. But I'm not insane - I realize I am a writer people buy to take on vacation.

I'm an escapist kind of writer.

After my hip operation, I had to cut out butter, which I loved, and salt. I no longer eat desserts with lots of cream, and I've cut right back on alcohol.

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

I didn't get excited by weight loss, and since I was already happy being fat, I couldn't see the point of it all. I'm 6 ft. and weigh about 18 st. or 19 st., but weighing myself is not something I do with much pleasure.

Of course, I should have done what doctors said and walked for miles every day and not eaten great amounts of butter. But then, life is life, and if we all did what they said we should do, it would be a different world.

Because I saw my parents relaxing in armchairs and reading and liking it, I thought it was a peaceful grown-up thing to do, and I still think that.

I think I'm brave because I've made decisions based - I hope not entirely selfishly - on what I think is right for me to do next.

I have always believed that life is too short for rows and disagreements. Even if I think I'm right, I would prefer to apologize and remain friends rather than win and be an enemy.

Everybody is a hero in their own story if you just look.

I do try to live every day as if it were my last, and it has worked for me so far.

If you woke up each morning, and immediately dwelt on your ills, what sort of a day could you look forward to?

I remember watching myself on video and being so disappointed with myself because I was constantly moving around the place and laughing. I thought, 'I must be so much louder than I think I am. From inside it feels fine.'

The whole art of life is knowing the right time to say things.

My memory of my home was that it was very happy, and that there was more fun and life there than there was anywhere else.

I have been lucky enough to travel a lot, meet great people in many lands. I have liked almost everyone I met along the way.

My father went to work by train every day. It was half an hour's journey each way, and he would read a paperback in four journeys. After supper, we all sat down to read - it was long before TV, remember!

I have great family and good friends; the stories I told became popular, and people all over the world bought them.

My brother married young, and his is the best marriage I know.

If you don't go to a dance you can never be rejected but you'll never get to dance either.

In my stories, whenever there's somebody wonderful and charming and bright and intelligent, that's me!

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.

The most important thing to realize is that everyone is capable of telling a story.

I was the big, bossy older sister, full of enthusiasms, mad fantasies, desperate urges to be famous, and anxious to be a saint - a settled sort of saint, not one who might have to suffer or die for her faith.

When I was younger, I avoided exercise or anything strenuous. I didn't even enjoy walking. As I got older, I spent so much time marking books or sitting at a desk writing that there was no room for exercise - not that I would have bothered anyway.

Success is not like a cake that needs to be divided. It's more like a heap of stones - a cairn. If someone is successful, they add a stone to the cairn. It gets very high and can be seen from all over the world. That's how I see it.

You can't lay down laws for what people think and hope.

I didn't have a sweet tooth, but I liked butter, and I liked sauces, and I liked wine and curry and cheeses.

I was lucky enough to be fairly quick at understanding what was taught, but unlucky enough not to be really interested in it, so I always got my exams but never had the scholar's love of learning for its own sake.

We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. Our love stories are amazingly romantic; our losses and betrayals and disappointments are gigantic in our own minds.

I am not a member of Fat Liberation, nor do I think that obesity is healthy. But I do believe that in many ways my life has been a more charmed and happy one because I was always large.

I discovered that men were just like everyone else, really. They liked you if you were good-tempered and easy to talk to. And being a big girl meant other females trusted you more and confided in you.

I've had a good life, full of more success and happiness than I ever expected.

Women who start out as ugly ducklings don't become beautiful swans. What they mainly become is confident ducks. They take charge of their lives.

Never mind money; the gifts of time and skill call into being the richest marketplace in the world.