Roddy Doyle Quotes & Sayings

Most working days I can be at my desk for nine hours a day. — Roddy Doyle

Jesus, she said. -Are you in there at all? -I am, Annie, I told her. -Bursting to get out. — Roddy Doyle

It was frightening, though, how little time you got. You only became yourself when you were twenty-three or twenty-four. A few years later, you had an old man's chest hair. It wasn't worth it. — Roddy Doyle

Do be kind to yourself. Fill pages as quickly as possible; double space, or write on every second line. Regard every new page as a small triumph, until you get to page 50. Then calm down, and start worrying about the quality. Do feel anxiety - it's the job. — Roddy Doyle

It's great meeting children because you never know what they will say. — Roddy Doyle

I cried, a bit, as a spoke to Belinda on my mobile phone, in a quiet corner, perhaps the only quiet corner in Jaipur. I told her how I'd hoped Paul would read the forward, that he'd read how much I admired his work and how much I admired him, how much I just plain liked him and loved him. But, even as I spoke, I knew: Paul had always known that. He'd seen in on my face every time we met. What made me cry was the obvious, stupid fact that we'd never meet again. — Roddy Doyle

They ran. They stayed warmer that way and running seemed to be the right way to measure their love for Uncle Ben. They wanted to hear their breath, and their feet stamping the ground. They wanted to feel their lungs working, and their hearts. — Roddy Doyle

And even the aches and pains that had joined her as she got older
she'd liked them. They were reminders
the back, the knee, the achy wrists
they were even friends: Feel that now, Emer. You're alive. — Roddy Doyle

I've been asked why does Ireland produce so many great musicians, and the answer is it doesn't. When you count the great musicians Ireland has given the world in the last 20 years, you can do it on one hand. — Roddy Doyle

Head in the book. Nose sliding down the valley between the pages. — Roddy Doyle

If you were going to be best friends with anyone - Kevin - you had to hate a lot of other people, the two of you, together. It made you better friends. — Roddy Doyle

Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's part of any endeavour, not just writing. — Roddy Doyle

She was in the book again and, by the time she got to page-turning time again, she'd forgetting I was there. — Roddy Doyle

Good ideas are often murdered by better ones. — Roddy Doyle

I swooned the first time I saw Charlo. I actually did. I didn't faint or fall on the floor but my legs went rubbery on me and I giggled. I suddenly knew that I had lungs because they were empty and collapsing. — Roddy Doyle

The best way to reveal a character is to get them to open their mouths. — Roddy Doyle

I don't work to any commissions. I do what I want to do. — Roddy Doyle

I'm not recognised that much. I'm just a bald man in glasses and there's a rash of them in Dublin. It'd be different if I had a mohican. — Roddy Doyle

Dreaming was only nice while it lasted. — Roddy Doyle

The problem with being Irish ... is having 'Riverdance' on your back. It's a burden at times. — Roddy Doyle

I remember I wanted to get away; I wanted to run. I couldn't stand any more. But I didn't want to run. I wanted everything to be perfect; everything was going to be great - I just had to be careful. I was responsible for it all. The clouds coming, I was dragging them towards us; my thoughts were doing it. I was ruining everything. It was up to me. I could control the whole day. All I had to do was make sure that I made no stupid mistakes. Don't walk on the cracks. Don't look at the clouds. It's up to you. — Roddy Doyle

I wouldn't go out of my way to experience the indignity of middle-age just because it might be good meat for a story. — Roddy Doyle

No matter how close to personal experience a story might be, inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and, actually, whether it happened or not becomes irrelevant. It is all about choosing the right words. — Roddy Doyle

I like naming characters. — Roddy Doyle

If you are a writer you're at home, which means you're out of touch. You have to make excuses to get out there and look at how the world is changing. — Roddy Doyle

Do ghosts drink tea?
They don't, said Tansey. But this ghost would love to see a cup of tea in front of her. It'd be lovely. — Roddy Doyle

It's the only thing sexier than a sexy woman. A sexy woman cooking fuckin' sausages. — Roddy Doyle

She's a pot-of-tea-before-I-say-boo-to-you woman. There's always a pile of warm teabags in the sink when I come down, like what a horse would leave behind. — Roddy Doyle

My parents were sixty years married. — Roddy Doyle

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do. — Roddy Doyle

It often seemed that the trees were flu of people whispering
especially tonight. — Roddy Doyle

Her granny was asleep and Mary knew it was special, this trip. It was something that hadn't been planned. It was actually impossible. Four generations of women
"I'm a woman," Mary said to herself
heading off on a journey in a car. One of them dead, one of them dying, one of them driving, one of them just starting out. — Roddy Doyle

When I was growing up, the exam system didn't allow you to write fiction, so you never did. — Roddy Doyle

We'll cry," she said. "An then we'll stop. Because it's only a house. — Roddy Doyle

Four generations of women
"I'm a woman," Mary said to herself
heading off on a journey in a car. One of the dead, one of them dying, one of the driving, one of them just staring out. — Roddy Doyle

Terror. That was it. — Roddy Doyle

I was the ref. I was the ref they didn't know about. Deaf and dumb. Invisible as a wall. I wanted no one to win — Roddy Doyle

I jumped on Sinbad's bottle. Nothing happened. I didn't do it again. Sometimes when nothing happened it was really getting ready to happen — Roddy Doyle

When you grow up on an island, what matters is how you stand to the sea. — Roddy Doyle

I tend to plan as I write. And I want to leave myself open and the character open to keep on going until it seems to be the time to stop. — Roddy Doyle

We parked our bikes on verges so they could graze. — Roddy Doyle

When I started writing full time I had not long stopped being a teacher and when at last I had a full day to write, I would put music on and wonder to myself - am I allowed to do this? Then I thought: 'I am control of this and no one is telling me what I can do.' — Roddy Doyle

I do enjoy Gothic fiction or books about zombies if they are well written and I like vampires. — Roddy Doyle

He loved me and he beat me. I loved him and I took it. It's as simple as that, and as stupid and complicated. It's terrible. It's like knowing someone you love is dead but not having the body to prove it. He loved me. I know it. — Roddy Doyle

It was a sign of growing up, when the dark made no more difference to you than the day. — Roddy Doyle

Some of the people who look the most normal are probably the maddest people trying to look normal. — Roddy Doyle

Gloria screamed, but nothing came out. She could feel the scream in her throat, but it was clinging there, too scared to climb out of her mouth.
Raymond might have screamed, too
he wasn't sure. His face was an exploding red ball
that was what it felt like. His heart was in the middle of his head. He couldn't see a thing. — Roddy Doyle

They were joking, but it was a serious conversation. They were often like that, Mary and her granny, when they were alone together. — Roddy Doyle

She'd tried her hand at most things, but drew the line at honesty. — Roddy Doyle

- It's gas but, isn't it? How we get suckered in. Some prick in a white coat says if you eat all o' your peas Gina Lollobrigida will sit on your face. — Roddy Doyle

I'm going to sound like an old man but at my age, it's lovely doing something that you've never done before. — Roddy Doyle

Ulysses could have done with a good editor. You know people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it. — Roddy Doyle

I had to make sure I kept an eye on the real world. — Roddy Doyle

I see people in terms of dialogue and I believe that people are their talk. — Roddy Doyle

When I was a kid, if you didn't speak Irish, you really wanted to. And you played Gaelic games and you didn't pay any attention to what was happening in the outside world, because really, Ireland was the center of the universe. And I don't think that's the case anymore. Although, admittedly, it is the center of the universe. — Roddy Doyle

Mary,' said her mother. 'We don't like sarcasm '
'You mightn't like it,' said Mary. 'But I love it. — Roddy Doyle

One day at a time, sweet Jesus. Whoever wrote that one hadn't a clue. A day is a fuckin' eternity — Roddy Doyle

She's happier than Nicola. That's probably true. Alcoholics can stop drinking but what is there for the children of alcoholics? Is it always too late? Probably. She doesn't know. — Roddy Doyle

There were days when I didn't exist; he saw through me and walked around me. I was invisible. There were days when I liked not existing. I closed down, stopped thinking, stopped looking ... There were days when I couldn't even feel pain. They were the best ones. I could see it happening. There was no ground under me, nothing to fall to. I was able to not care. I could float. I didn't exist — Roddy Doyle

-I love yeh, son, said Jimmy Sr.
He could say it and no one could hear him, except young Jimmy, because of the singing and roaring and breaking glasses.
-I think you're fuckin' great, said Jimmy Sr.
-Ah fuck off, will yeh, said Jimmy Jr. -Packie saved the fuckin' penalty, not me.
But he liked what he'd heard, Jimmy Sr could tell that. He gave Jimmy Sr a dig in the stomach.
-You're not a bad oul' cunt yourself, he said. — Roddy Doyle

When I'm writing I just think there's only the page and me and nobody else. — Roddy Doyle

It's hard for me to measure them, or to assess my books because I'm so close to them. — Roddy Doyle

I write short stories when a little idea occurs to me, that I know isn't a part of a novel that will stand by itself and should be concentrated. — Roddy Doyle

Sometimes, when you were thinking about something, trying to understand it, it opened up in your head without you expecting it to, like it was a soft spongy light unfolding, and you understood, it made sense forever ... — Roddy Doyle

If there is a heaven, Jane Austen is sitting in a small room with Mother Teresa and Princess Diana, listening to Duran Duran, forever. If there's a hell, she's standing. — Roddy Doyle

If you're from Dublin, for example, chances are you live with your family, if you're lucky enough to, right up to the mid-20s. And most of the people I know, when they finally sort of set off on their own, they don't stray all that far. — Roddy Doyle

Fuck was the best word. The most dangerous word. You couldn't whisper it. Fuck was always too loud, too late to stop it, it burst in the air above you and fell slowly right over your head. There was total silence, nothing but Fuck floating down. For a few seconds you were dead, waiting for Henno to look up and see Fuck landing on top of you. They were thrilling seconds-when he didn't look up. It was a word you couldn't say anywhere. It wouldn't come out unless you pushed it. It made you feel caught and grabbed you the minute you said it. When it escaped it was like an electric laugh, a soundless gasp followed by the kind of laughing only forbidden things could make, an inside tickle that became a brilliant pain, bashing at your mouth to be let out. It was agony. We didn't waste it. — Roddy Doyle

I live on an island called Ireland where most of the music is shite. I grew up listening to "Danny Boy"; I grew up hating Danny Boy, and all his siblings and his granny. "The pipes, the pipes are caw-haw-hawing." Anything with pipes or fiddles or even - forgive me, Paul - banjos, I detested. Songs of loss, of love, of going across the sea; songs of defiance and rebellion - I vomited on all of them. — Roddy Doyle

Sometimes adults seem as though they have cut a chord from being a child. — Roddy Doyle

It's a big con job. We have sold the myth of Dublin as a sexy place incredibly well; because it is a dreary little dump most of the time. — Roddy Doyle

To claim that music is more important than oxygen would be trite and sentimental. It would also be true. — Roddy Doyle

The Irish are the niggers of Europe, lads. — Roddy Doyle