I am not kind, I cut people off as with shears and I drop them like nettles. Edna O'Brien More Quotes by Edna O'Brien More Quotes From Edna O'Brien IT WAS TESS who told me about the crowd going to the all-night dance. We'd been school friends. We'd picked mushrooms and pretended to have seen a big ship. She had got married since I went away; it was a made match, a man from the midlands, a Donal, who had worked in a garage but took to farming, out all day, draining fields and callows so that he could till them and sow corn. Edna O'Brien mennightschool For me to write I have to be, a, alone, and b, know that nobody is going to question me. I write the way a thief steals; it's a little covert. Edna O'Brien thieveswritinglittles Movie people are possessed by demons, but a very low form of demons. Edna O'Brien demonformpeople Cities, in many ways, are the best repositories for a love affair. You are in a forest or a cornfield, you are walking by the seashore, footprint after footprint of trodden sand, and somehow the kiss or the spoken covenant gets lost in the vastness and indifference of nature. In a city there are places to remind us of what has been. Edna O'Brien vastnesskissingcities literature is the last banquet between minds. Edna O'Brien lastsliteraturemind Irish Catholicism is very much founded on the stone of fear and of punishment. Edna O'Brien punishmentstonesreligion Writing is the product of a deeply disturbed psyche, and by no means therapeutic. Edna O'Brien disturbedwritingmean When you fall in love, it is spring no matter when. Leaves falling make no difference, they are from another season. Edna O'Brien falling-in-lovedifferencesspring Writers are always anxious, always on the run--from the telephone, from responsibilities, from the distractions of the world. Edna O'Brien responsibilityrunningworld That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open. Edna O'Brien cuttingheartwriting I knew I had done something awful. I had killed love, before I even knew the enormity of what love meant. Edna O'Brien awfuldonelove-is Oh, love, what an unreasoning creature it grew to be. Edna O'Brien grewcreatures It was the first time that I came face to face with madness and feared it and was fascinated by it. Edna O'Brien madnessfacesfirsts Darkness is drawn to light, but light does not know it; light must absorb the darkness and therefore meet its own extinguishment. Edna O'Brien lightdarknessdoe Death in its way comes just as much of a surprise as birth. Edna O'Brien birthdeathway Ideally I'd like to spend two evenings a week talking to Proust and another conversing with the Holy Ghost. Edna O'Brien eveningtalkingtwo I'm a tuning fork, tense and twanging all the time. Edna O'Brien tenseforkstuning If the Holy Communion touched my teeth, I thought that was a mortal sin Edna O'Brien teethholysin What matters is the imaginative truth. Edna O'Brien imaginativewhat-mattersmatter When something has been perfect, there is a tendency to try hard to repeat it. Edna O'Brien tendenciesperfectiontrying
