Edna O'Brien
Edna O'Brien
Edna O'Brienis an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short story writer. Philip Roth has described her "the most gifted woman now writing in English", while former President of Ireland Mary Robinson has cited her as "one of the great creative writers of her generation."...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth15 December 1932
CountryIreland
mind literature lasts
literature is the last banquet between minds.
love people like-you
...people liking you or not liking you is an accident and is to do with them and not you. That goes for love too, only more so.
dream morning real
The other me, who did not mean to drown herself, went under the sea and remained there for a long time. Eventually she surfaced near Japan and people gave her gifts but she had been so long under the sea she did not recognize what they were. She is a sly one. Mostly at night we commune. Night. Harbinger of dream and nightmare and bearer of omens which defy the music of words. In the morning the fear of her going is very real and very alarming. It can make one tremble. Not that she cares. She is the muse. I am the messenger.
writing fetus
Writing is like carrying a fetus.
soul mind hotel
Writers really live in the mind and in hotels of the soul.
death way birth
Death in its way comes just as much of a surprise as birth.
real spring winter
In a way Winter is the real Spring - the time when the inner things happen, the resurgence of nature.
grew creatures
Oh, love, what an unreasoning creature it grew to be.
heart self secret
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.
writing thieves littles
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.
voice knows
... we have so many voices in us, how do we know which ones to obey?
cutting people kind
I am not kind, I cut people off as with shears and I drop them like nettles.
fear animal knowing
what makes us so afraid is the thing we half see, or half hear, as in a wood at dusk, when a tree stump becomes an animal and a sound becomes a siren. And most of that fear is the fear of not knowing, of not actually seeing correctly.
jealousy betrayal self
jealousy is the direct result of self-betrayal.