Marian Keyes Quotes

What doesn't kill us makes us funnier.

Every day I wake up afraid that I won't be able to write, that today is the day it has left me.

You know what it's like. Sometimes, you meet a wonderful person, but it's only for a brief instant. Maybe on vacation or on a train or maybe even in a bus line. And they touch your life for a moment, but in a special way. And instead of mourning because they can't be with you for longer, or because you don't get the chance to know them better, isn't it better to be glad that you met them at all?

Why do we have such a finite capacity for pleasure but an infinite one for pain?

Medically speaking, there is no such thing as a nervous breakdown. Which is very annoying to discover when you're right in the middle of one.

It's not like you take the right turning and you get everlasting happiness and you take the wrong one and your life's a disaster. In real life it's often impossible to tell which decision is the one you should make because what you stand to gain and what you stand to lose are sometimes-often-neck and neck.

Love is blind, there was no doubt about it. In Tara's case it was also deaf, dumb, dyslexic, had a bad hip and the beginnings of Alzheimer's

I had spent my whole life feeling homesick. The only difference between the two of us was that I didn't know what or where home was.

Not only was he not mad, but he was a musician, and my favorite men had always been musicians or writers or anything that involved the creative process and behaving like tortured artists. ... I found financial insecurity a great aphrodisiac.

I used to write in bed, starting when I woke up. I believe that creative work comes from our subconscious mind, so I try to keep the gap between sleep and writing as minimal as possible.

I haven’t had Botox because my face is a bit lopsided and I depend on keeping everything animated so that people don’t notice.

I'm proud of what I write and feel endorsed by my readers.

You will go on and meet someone else and I'll just be a chapter in your tale, but for me, you were, you are and you always will be, the whole story.

I've always been melancholic. At a party, everyone would be looking at the glittering chandeliers and I'd be looking at the waitress's cracked shoes.

I'm quite introverted but I'm not shy.

People get sick and sometimes they get better and sometimes they don't. And it doesn't matter if the sickness is cancer or if it's depression. Sometimes the drugs work and sometimes they don't. Sometimes the drugs work for a while and then they stop. Sometimes the alternative stuff works and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes you wonder if no outside interference makes any difference at all; if an illness is like a storm, if it simply has to run its course and, at the end of it, depending on how robust you are, you will be alive. Or you will be dead.

I loved being in my own head so much, it was getting harder and harder being with other people.

Do I mind being called a chick-lit writer? Well, it's not the worst thing that could happen.

One day we'll all be dead, and none of this will matter" -The Brightest Star in the Sky.

I like hoodies. They just make me feel safe.

No more humiliation for me, thanks very much. No more swallowing my anger. Honestly, I couldn't manage another mouthful. But it was delicious. Did you make it yourself?

Her world had shrunk - no matter who she was with, she'd prefer to be with him. That's what happened when you fell in love - you only want to see them.

God! I hated this business of being grown-up. I hated having to make decisions where I didn't know what was behind the door. I wanted a world where heroes and villains were clearly labeled. Where ominous music comes on-screen so you can't possibly mistake him. Where someone asks you to choose between playing with the beautiful princess in the fragrant garden and being eaten by the hideous monster in the foul-smelling pit. Not exactly a difficult one, now is it? Not something that you would agonize over, or that would make you lose a night's sleep?

Political correctness is a minefield

smarter than me. But here's the thing my life did get better. I made a decision to let go of my dreams, because they were killing me, and I stopped asking the impossible of myself. I changed my attitude and decided to focus on what I had rather than what i didn't have.

When God closes one door, He slams another in your face

Minsk! How pissed-off that sounded! It was great. You could scare the bejayzus out of someone if you said it right.

I rang my mother to thank her for giving birth to me and she said, "What choice had I? You were in there, how else were you going to get out?

So I'm back again to the eternal question, the one that has plagued me all my life: How Do Other People Do It? How come they were given life's rule book and I missed out? Where was I when God was dispensing capability and cop on? Looking at shoes, probably.

I still get awful depression. It's who I am.

why can't we love the right people? what is so wrong with us that we rush into situations to which we are manifestly unsuited, which will hurt us and others? why are we given emotions which we cannot control and which move in exact contradiction to what we really want? we are walking conflicts, internal battles on legs.

For all of my life it was the size of my rear that caused me the most hand-wringing, but in this nearly-50 zone it is my stomach that is the problem. It seems to have broken free from its moorings and there is no knowing how far it will roam.

Hen nights should be banned. You're honour-bound to behave atrociously, then feel terribly ashamed afterwards. (This Charming Man)

Relationship gurus always said that an attraction based on friendship and mutual respect was far more likely to stay the course - and the bastards were right.

Nothing sinister. Just getting exercise. Although some might consider that sinister.

I think denial's fascinating. It's a jokey word, but it really happens, and sometimes in enormous ways.

I'd rather dig a ditch than go to a dinner party with people I don't know.

As you know, I don't believe in fear, just an invention by men so they get all the money and good jobs.

I know of people who don't believe it, but depression is an illness, but unlike, say, a broken leg, you don't know when it'll get better.

I used to feel defensive when people would say, 'Yes, but your books have happy endings', as if that made them worthless, or unrealistic. Some people do get happy endings, even if it's only for a while. I would rather never be published again than write a downbeat ending.

Here's how it is: I feel guilty about every single bite of food that goes into my mouth.

Some think love can be measured by the amount of butterflies in their tummy. Others think love can be measured in bunches of flowers, or by using the words 'for ever.' But love can only truly be measured by actions. It can be a small thing, such as peeling an orange for a person you love because you know they don't like doing it.

Besides, I'd seen a really nice pair of shoes yesterday in the mall and I wanted them for my own. I can't describe the feeling of immediate familiarity that rushed between us. The moment I clapped eyes on them I felt like I already owned them. I could only suppose that we were together in a former life. That they were my shoes when I was a serving maid in medieval Britain or when I was a princess in ancient Egypt. Or perhaps they were the princess and I was the shoes. Who's to know? Either way I knew that we were meant to be together.

I am different when my nails are done. I am more dynamic. I gesticulate more, I am better at scaring my staff. I can indicate impatience by drumming on tabletops and I can wrap up a meeting with a few choice clatters.

Failed relationships can be described as so much wasted make-up.

They say the path of true love never runs smooth. Well, Luke and my true love's path didn't run at all, it limped along in new boots that were chafing its heels. Blistered and cut, red and raw, every hopping, lopsided step, a little slice of agony.

Chick Lit uses humor to reflect life back to us. It's a very comforting genre, and it's the first time our generation has had a voice. It's a very important genre for all of those reasons.

For feel-good fiction to work, there has to be an element of darkness.