Maeve Binchy Quotes

"The great thing about getting older is that you become more mellow. Things aren't as black and white, and you become much more tolerant. You can see the good in things much more easily rather than getting enraged as you used to do when you were young."

"Happiness is in our own hearts. I have no regrets of anything in the past. I'm totally cheerful and happy, and I think that a lot of your attitude is not in the circumstances you find yourself in, but in the circumstances you make for yourself."

"Everybody is a hero in their own story if you just look."

"I've had a good life, full of more success and happiness than I ever expected."

"I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turn into confident ducks."

"Nobody is ordinary if you know where to look."

"There are no makeovers in my books. The ugly duckling does not become a beautiful swan. She becomes a confident duck able to take charge of her own life and problems."

"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."

"We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. Our love stories are amazingly romantic; our losses and betrayals and disappointments are gigantic in our own minds."

"In my stories, whenever there's somebody wonderful and charming and bright and intelligent, that's me!"

"I'm a great will maker. I've made my will every year since I was 21."

"My memory of my home was that it was very happy, and that there was more fun and life there than there was anywhere else."

"I was very pleased, obviously, to have outsold such great writers. But I'm not insane - I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation."

"I'm an escapist kind of writer."

"I had a very happy childhood, which is unsuitable if you're going to be an Irish writer."

"All I ever wanted to do is to write stories that people will enjoy and feel at home with."

"I never wanted to write. I just wrote letters home from a kibbutz in Israel to reassure my parents that I was still alive and well fed and having a great time. They thought these letters were brilliant and sent them to a newspaper. So I became a writer by accident."

"Always write as if you are talking to someone. It works. Don't put on any fancy phrases or accents or things you wouldn't say in real life."

"Because I saw my parents relaxing in armchairs and reading and liking it, I thought it was a peaceful grown-up thing to do, and I still think that."

"If you woke up each morning, and immediately dwelt on your ills, what sort of a day could you look forward to?"

"I've been very lucky and I have a happy old age with good family and friends still around."

"We're nothing if we're not loved. When you meet somebody who is more important to you than yourself, that has to be the most important thing."

"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 was fat, and that was awful because when you're young and sensitive, you think the world is over because you're fat."

"I wore miniskirts in the days when no fat girls should have, and with total delight."

"I think you've got to play the hand that you're dealt and stop wishing for another hand."

"That's the kind of motif I bring to the books - that people take charge of their own lives."

"If you're going on a plane journey, you're more likely to take one of my stories than 'Finnegan's Wake.'"

"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.'"