Maeve Binchy
Maeve Binchy
Maeve Binchy Snell, known as Maeve Binchy, was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, columnist, and speaker best known for her sympathetic and often humorous portrayal of small-town life in Ireland, her descriptive characters, her interest in human nature, and her often clever surprise endings. Her novels, which were translated into 37 languages, sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, and her death at age 73, announced by Vincent Browne on Irish television late on 30 July 2012, was...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 May 1940
CountryIreland
In my books, there is no 'ugly duckling turning into a beautiful swan' syndrome because if you look at the Hansel and Gretel syndrome, it was a mistake. It wasn't a duckling, it was a cygnet, and that's why it turned into a swan. The duckling should with any luck turn into a nice clucking duck and get on with its life. Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!
I don't say I was 'proceeding down a thoroughfare;' I say I 'walked down the road'. I don't say I 'passed a hallowed institute of learning;' I say I 'passed a school'.
If you're going on a plane journey, you're more likely to take one of my stories than 'Finnegan's Wake.'
I was just lucky I lived in this time of mass-market paperbacks.
I'm an escapist kind of writer.
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 getting better, happier, and nicer as I grow older, so I would be terrific in a couple of hundred years time.
I have great family and good friends; the stories I told became popular, and people all over the world bought them.
In my stories, whenever there's somebody wonderful and charming and bright and intelligent, that's me!
I'm mainly an airport author, and if you're trying to take your mind off the journey, you're not going to read 'King Lear.'
If you don't go to a dance, you can never be rejected, but you'll never get to dance, either.
You don't wear all your jewellery at once. You're much more believable if you talk in your own voice.
My mother hoped I would meet a nice doctor or barrister or accountant who would marry me and take me to live in what is now called Fashionable Dublin Four. But she felt that this was a vain hope. I was a bit loud to make a nice professional wife, and anyway, I was too keen on spending my holidays in far flung places to meet any of these people.