Maeve Binchy Quotes & Sayings

You can't marry an ungenerous man; there's no joy in his soul. — Maeve Binchy

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. — Maeve Binchy

bowls of cornflakes, — Maeve Binchy

My family life reads a bit like 'Little House on the Prairie.' I was big sister to Joan, Renee, and brother William, and we grew up in Dalkey, a little town 10 miles outside of Dublin. It was a secure, safe and happy childhood, which was meant to be a disadvantage when it comes to writing stories about family dramas. — Maeve Binchy

Eve showed Aidan how to rake the range. "I think when we're married we might have something more modern," he grumbled. "No, surely with the eight children we can have them stoking it, going up the chimney even. — Maeve Binchy

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.' — Maeve Binchy

Why should I apologise for being utterly honest from the start, telling you the score, telling you the truth, coming to meet your parents, calling them to say I was worried that you didn't answer your phone. Are these the actions of some kind of shit? No, I think they're what a man who loves you might do. — Maeve Binchy

I once tried to write a novel about revenge. It's the only book I didn't finish. I couldn't get into the mind of the person who was plotting vengeance. — Maeve Binchy

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

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. — Maeve Binchy

You can't lay down laws for what people think and hope. — Maeve Binchy

Listen to me, Ria. It will be different when you and I have a home. It will be a real home, one that people will want to come running back to. — Maeve Binchy

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

I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation. I'm an escapist kind of writer. — Maeve Binchy

The biggest influence on my books was the fact that I had worked in a newspaper for so long. In a daily paper, you learn to write very quickly; there is no time to sit and brood about what you are going to say. — Maeve Binchy

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

I believed that old people never laughed. I thought they sighed a lot and groaned. They walked with sticks, and they didn't like children on bicycles or roller skates ... or with big dogs. — Maeve Binchy

My father went to work by train every day. It was half an hour's journey each way, and he would read a paperback in four journeys. After supper, we all sat down to read - it was long before TV, remember! — Maeve Binchy

I do try to live every day as if it were my last, and it has worked for me so far. — Maeve Binchy

I'm particularly fond of boned chicken breasts with a little garlic under the flesh and cooked in a casserole for 40 minutes with a jar of olives, some cherry tomatoes and a spoonful of olive oil. — Maeve Binchy

Growing up in Ireland, there never seemed to be the notion that children should be seen and not heard. We all looked forward to mealtimes when we'd sit around the table and talk about our days. Storytelling and long, rambling conversations were considered good things. — Maeve Binchy

He had not known it was possible to love a little human being as he loved Annie. — Maeve Binchy

I didn't have a sweet tooth, but I liked butter, and I liked sauces, and I liked wine ... and curry ... and cheeses. — Maeve Binchy

I have been luckier than anyone I know or even heard of. I had a very happy childhood, a good education, I enjoyed working as a teacher, journalist and author. I have loved a wonderful man for over 33 years, and I believe he loves me, too. — Maeve Binchy

When my sister Joan arrived, I asked if I could swap her for a rabbit. When I think what a marvellous friend she's been, I'm so glad my parents didn't take me at my word. — Maeve Binchy

Of course I wanted children. Bright, gorgeous, loving children. I could almost see them. — Maeve Binchy

I was fat, and that was awful because when you're young and sensitive, you think the world is over because you're fat. — Maeve Binchy

Well. The term "frocky" was used a lot as a derogatory description for women that Eileen and Stephanie thought were dressing just to please male egos. Yet — Maeve Binchy

Of course, I should have done what doctors said and walked for miles every day and not eaten great amounts of butter. But then, life is life, and if we all did what they said we should do, it would be a different world. — Maeve Binchy

I don't think you're happier if you're thin or beautiful or rich or married. You have to make your own happiness. My heroines do not become beautiful elegant swans, they become confident ducks and get on with life. — Maeve Binchy

To heal would be to open the wound,examine it and forgive — Maeve Binchy

He smiled at her, handsome Alan, who was always used to getting his own way. He hadn't changed. Alan, who was already as faithless to Cinta as he had been to her. Suddenly, like a focus in binoculars, everything became clear. This was a man worth spending not one more minute thinking about, second-guessing or trying to understand. — Maeve Binchy

I don't think we should spend any time wandering around that remote possibility. It's nice of you to wish me well, but actually I find it unbearably patronizing. — Maeve Binchy

I think I'm brave because I've made decisions based - I hope not entirely selfishly - on what I think is right for me to do next. — Maeve Binchy

He thought about how life never turns out like you think and hope it will. — Maeve Binchy

Never mind money; the gifts of time and skill call into being the richest marketplace in the world. — Maeve Binchy

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. — Maeve Binchy

But an intelligent man like you would know that to live in an unrealistic hope is a very foolish way to spend a life. - Lena Gray — Maeve Binchy

You don't wear all your jewellery at once. You're much more believable if you talk in your own voice. — Maeve Binchy

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. — Maeve Binchy

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

If you write what you know about, you will always be on safe ground. I am very edgy and nervous about going into territories I know nothing about. That's why you don't find much high finance, group sex, or yachting parties in my stories. — Maeve Binchy

I have been lucky enough to travel a lot, meet great people in many lands. I have liked almost everyone I met along the way. — Maeve Binchy

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. — Maeve Binchy

And he said nothing. Just put his arms around her more closely as the whole heart clinic and their friends and relations danced to the music of "Hey Jude". — Maeve Binchy

Wasn't it hard that you did so much for children and loved them so deeply and they seemed so indifferent to you in return? — Maeve Binchy

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. — Maeve Binchy

If I see Marian Keyes' books or Patricia Scanlan's books given more prominence than mine in the bookstore, I'll move mine to the front. I've told them I do this, and they've confessed to doing the same thing to me. — Maeve Binchy

I've seen a lot of people buy my books and then fall asleep on the plane soon afterwards. — Maeve Binchy

I used to dream of some kind of way that you could carry a phone with you - but I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. It doesn't matter nowadays if you are caught in traffic or got lost on the way somewhere. You can just send a text and the recipient will know that you haven't fallen under a bus. — Maeve Binchy

I was the big, bossy older sister, full of enthusiasms, mad fantasies, desperate urges to be famous, and anxious to be a saint - a settled sort of saint, not one who might have to suffer or die for her faith. — Maeve Binchy

I thought it must be desperate to be old. To wake up in the morning and remember that you were ancient - and so behave that way. I thought old people were full of aches and pains and horrible illnesses. — Maeve Binchy

No, that can't be so.' 'Believe me, it is. All kinds of things you told them like sunsets are good and killing small birds is bad.' 'Oh please, may I have said something less banal. Please! — Maeve Binchy

I have great family and good friends; the stories I told became popular, and people all over the world bought them. — Maeve Binchy

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

Always she had sounded sympathetic, always she had appeared to understand. But inside there was a bit of her that said that they couldn't have tried hard enough. If Celia had a daughter who was desperately unhappy at school and who had lost four stone in weight, she wouldn't hang around
she'd try to cope with it. If she had a father who couldn't cope she'd have him to live with her. Only now was she beginning to realize that it was not to be so simple. People had minds of their own. And her mother's mind was like a hermetically sealed box in a vault of a bank. — Maeve Binchy

I'm getting better, happier, and nicer as I grow older, so I would be terrific in a couple of hundred years time. — Maeve Binchy

I am a big, confident, happy woman who had a loving childhood, a pleasant career, and a wonderful marriage. I feel very lucky. — Maeve Binchy

I once got a huge, expensive flower arrangement from a person I didn't like, who sent it out of pure guilt. It had a hideous bird-of-paradise in the middle, and I thought it would never fade and die. I hated it. — Maeve Binchy

I look placid, you see, that's why people think I'm fine. Inside I worry a lot. — Maeve Binchy

It's a funny old world. Once you realize that, you're halfway there. — Maeve Binchy

Do you know the land where the lemon-trees blossom;where the golden oranges glow in the dark foliage'. — Maeve Binchy

Who knows what light housework means? One nun's light could be another nun's penal servitude. — Maeve Binchy

If you had your time all over again ... ? She was keen to know.
You can't rewrite history. I have no idea what I'd do. — Maeve Binchy

I discovered that men were just like everyone else, really. They liked you if you were good-tempered and easy to talk to. And being a big girl meant other females trusted you more and confided in you. — Maeve Binchy

I have no idea whether what I write will be of the remotest interest to anyone else. Some mornings when I read what I wrote the previous day I think it's fairly entertaining; other times I think it's pure rubbish. The main thing is not to take any notice, not to be elated or upset, just keep going. — Maeve Binchy

I couldn't have children, so that's the bad side. But compared to everything else I have, it's not all that terribly bad. I count my winners rather than my losers. — Maeve Binchy

I'm an escapist kind of writer. — Maeve Binchy

I was just lucky I lived in this time of mass-market paperbacks. — Maeve Binchy

She said that it was dangerous to try to know somebody too well. People should have their own reserves, she said, the places they went in their minds, where no one else should follow. — Maeve Binchy

No point in destroying Wednesday thinking about Friday. This one-day-at-a-time thing really worked. Friday — Maeve Binchy

Her life was like her house - a colorful fantasy where anything was possible if you wanted it badly enough. — Maeve Binchy

2. Men like women without make-up. They don't. They like extremely well and carefully made-up women whose skin has that expensive cultured look which comes from three hours at the dressing table. A woman who is really without make-up would frighten them to death. They regard blotches as eczema, and uneven colouring as a sign of tertiary syphilis. — Maeve Binchy

Stop thinking like Alice in Wonderland, Celia told herself sternly. You're a grown-up, it's no use shutting your eyes, wishing things would happen — Maeve Binchy

I have an irregular heartbeat, so that means a fair amount of medication - and I have blood pressure pills, too, but no vitamins or supplements. — Maeve Binchy

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

It was quite possible that she had lost the capacity to love and care anymore and that this is how she was going to be for the rest of her life. — Maeve Binchy

When I was being brought up, we weren't allowed to wallow in self-pity, which was a thoroughly good thing. We were all fine and healthy because that was what we were told to be. — Maeve Binchy

If you don't go to a dance, you can never be rejected, but you'll never get to dance, either. — Maeve Binchy

The day she realized that there were many ways to go, and Mother's was only one way. Not necessarily the right way, and not at all the wrong way. Just one of the many ways ahead. — Maeve Binchy

After my hip operation, I had to cut out butter, which I loved, and salt. I no longer eat desserts with lots of cream, and I've cut right back on alcohol. — Maeve Binchy

That Dr. Morrissey had always said that we found excuses to put off doing something that would take our minds off our worries. It was as if we didn't want to lose the luxury of worrying. — Maeve Binchy

It was true what they had been saying: if people remember you, then you're not dead. It was very comforting. — Maeve Binchy

Nobody ever wins by the cavalry coming to rescue you. It isn't a question of you're happy if you get married, or you get thin, or you get rich, because I've known lots of thin, rich, married people who are absolutely miserable. — Maeve Binchy

We asked our friends and relations to lend us their children, and, because we lived in London, children loved to come and stay for their half-term holidays. — Maeve Binchy

I'll understand if you don't want me. But I will be heartbroken. You are all I ever dreamed of and hoped for. You are much, much more. Please know that I didn't think I was mean-minded. But I realize I am. I don't want you to put your arms around me and say it's all right, that you forgive me. I want you to be sure that you do, and my love for you will last as long as I live. I can see no lightness, no humour, no joke to make. I just hope that we will be able to go back to when we had laughter, and the world was coloured, not black and white and grey. I am so sorry for hurting you. I could inflict all kinds of pain on myself, but it would not take back any I gave to you. - David Power — Maeve Binchy

I didn't get excited by weight loss, and since I was already happy being fat, I couldn't see the point of it all. I'm 6 ft. and weigh about 18 st. or 19 st., but weighing myself is not something I do with much pleasure. — Maeve Binchy

Happiness is knowing and appreciating what you've got. I am very, very, very grateful for what, to me, is dead easy. — Maeve Binchy

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

respectability with overtones of — Maeve Binchy

I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks. — Maeve Binchy

I have always believed that life is too short for rows and disagreements. Even if I think I'm right, I would prefer to apologize and remain friends rather than win and be an enemy. — Maeve Binchy

When I was younger, I avoided exercise or anything strenuous. I didn't even enjoy walking. As I got older, I spent so much time marking books or sitting at a desk writing that there was no room for exercise - not that I would have bothered anyway. — Maeve Binchy

A silly idea about a book of blessings couldn't really work. Not seriously. — Maeve Binchy

I am much more understanding of people than I used to be when I was young - people were either villainous or wonderful. They were painted in very bright colours. The bad side of it - and there is a corollary to everything - is that when we get older, we fuss more. I used to despise people who fussed. — Maeve Binchy

Most people, once the money started getting bigger, thought we would buy a millionaire's house looking out at the sea - but what would two middle-aged people do that for? We were sensible enough when we got it. — Maeve Binchy

I live in Ireland near the sea, only one mile from where I grew up - that's good, since I've known many of my neighbours for between 50-60 years. Gordon and I play chess every day, and we are both equally bad. We play chatty, over-talkative bad bridge with friends every week. — Maeve Binchy

On the first day of school, my father told me I'd be the most popular girl and everyone would love me and want to be my friend. It wasn't so, but it gave me an enormous amount of confidence. — Maeve Binchy

She soon called a halt to the work. Judy's great success was that she stopped her helpers before they got tired. — Maeve Binchy

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