Quotes by : Edna O'Brien

The words ran away with me.

Love . . . is like nature, but in reverse; first it fruits, then it flowers, then it seems to wither,....

Fiction should be in its way subversive. I don't think books should be neat or gentle or genteel or comforting.....

It is impossible to capture the essence of love in writing, only its symptoms remain, the erotic absorption,....

I was lonelier than I should be, for a woman in love, or half in love.

That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart....

When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen,....

If we are taken all together, we might muster some courage, but from the previous evidence it is likely....

If the Holy Communion touched my teeth, I thought that was a mortal sin

My friends I tell you this, we are a jolly group but put us in uniform and all that change. In war I....