M Keyes Quotes & Sayings

Katie's mum, Penny, said "I don't know why you're wasting your time with him. If he's forty-two and never been married, he's hardly likely to get married now."
And Katie's sister Naomi had the darkest prediction. "He'll make mincemeat of you."
He won't," Katie protested. "I'm not going to fall for him."
So why are you bothering at all?"
Just killing time until I die. — Marian Keyes

But what they don't understand is that I'm living at a peak of clarity and beauty I never knew existed. Every part of me is attuned to the work. I soak it up into my pores during the day, and at night-in the moments before I pass off to sleep-ideas explode into my head like fireworks. There is no greater joy than the burst of solution to a problem. — Daniel Keyes

Insomnia is an enemy that attacks in many forms. Sometimes it shows up the moment I get into bed and lingers for a couple of hours. Other nights, it stays away until about 5 a.m. and then butts in and hangs around until twenty minutes before the alarm is due to go off. It's a full-time job, battling the fecker. — Marian Keyes

Because I want to see. I've got to know what's going to happen while I'm still enough in control to be able to do something about it. — Daniel Keyes

It's war, you jackasses," Keyes snapped. "I'm sorry it's not terribly convenient or comfortable for you. — John Scalzi

There is no question about it now. I'm in love. — Daniel Keyes

Perhaps one day in the far-off future, when I'm about eighty-nine, I might look back and say, "When I was a young-ish woman I fell in love with an intense charismatic man. He was way out of my league and when it ended it nearly killed me, but every woman should experience that sort of love once in their lives. Only once, mind, you mightn't survive a second bout. A bit like dengue fever, that way." I — Marian Keyes

People don't tend to employ me. I'm the wrong personality type. Or rather, people do tend to employ me for a short time and then they sack me. A film broker once told me, as she terminated my contract, that I have a misleading sort of face.
"You're pretty", she complained. "Your features are symmetrical and there was an article in Grazia that says human beings are programmed to find those with symmetrical features more pleasing to they eye. So this isn't my fault, I was simply responding to a biological imperative. You've even teeth, so when you smile, you look ... sweet, I suppose. But you're not, are you?"
"I hope not," I said.
"You see, there you go again. You're a smart-arse and you've no ability to filter your thoughts
"
"And my thoughts are often abrasive."
"Exactly."
"I'll just get my brushes and sponges and leave."
"If you would. — Marian Keyes

I'm not close to him." He looked at me defiantly. "But he's put his whole life into this. He's no Freud or Jung or Pavlov or Watson, but he's doing something important and I respect his dedication - maybe even more because he's just an ordinary man trying to do a great man's work, while the great men are all busy making bombs. — Daniel Keyes

I'm the first to admit that I never achieved my potential as an actress. — Evelyn Keyes

I passed your floor on the way up, and now I'm passing it on the way down, and I don't think I'll be taking this elevator again. — Daniel Keyes

I'm a seething cauldron of disconnected rage on the inside, Lieutenant." "Ah, repression," Keyes said. "Excellent. Try to avoid taking a potshot at me when you finally blow, please." "I can't promise anything, sir," Alan said. — John Scalzi

Black Americans make up 10 or 11% of the population, but they account now for something of 40 to 45% of all the abortions. This is a privileged position that I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would aspire to. — Alan Keyes

I'm trying ... " How could I put it? "I'm trying to get far enough down the line so that I can remember." I stopped, then continued: "so that I can remember without the pain killing me"
And the days were stacking up. And weeks. And months. It was now almost the middle of June and he'd died in February, but I still felt like I'd just woken from a horrible dream, that I was suspended in that stunned, paralyzed state between sleep and reality where I was grasping for, but couldn't get a handle on normality. — Marian Keyes

The back windows looked out over the fields, then the Atlantic, maybe a hundred yards away. Actually, I'm just making that bit up. I had no idea how far away the sea was. Only men could do things like that. "Half a mile." "Fifty yards." Giving directions, that sort of thing. I could look at a woman and say "Thirty-six C." Or "Let's try it in the next size up." But I had no idea how far away Tim's sea was except that I wouldn't want to walk to it in high heels. — Marian Keyes

Here look at me. I'm Charlie, the son you wrote off the books? Not that I blame you for it, but here I am, all fixed up better than ever. Test me. Ask me questions. I speak twenty languages, living and dead; I'm a mathematical whiz, and I'm writing a piano concerto that will make them remember me long after I'm gone. — Daniel Keyes

I never wear flats. My shoes are so high that sometimes when I step out of them, people look around in confusion and ask, "Where'd she go?" and I have to say, "I'm down here. — Marian Keyes

Shoes were invented by the Sith to keep our delicate toes in anguish and misery, I'm sure of it."
-Tahiri Veila (Edge of Victory: Conquest) — Greg Keyes

April 26 - I know I shouldn't hang around the college when I'm through at the lab, but seeing the young men and women going back and forth carrying books and hearing them talk about all the things they're learning in their classes excites me. I wish I could sit and talk with them over coffee in the Campus Bowl Luncheonette when they get together to argue about books and politics and ideas. It's exciting to hear them talking about poetry and science and philosophy - about Shakespeare and Milton; Newton and Einstein and Freud; about Plato and Hegel and Kant, and all the other names that echo like great church bells in my mind. Sometimes I listen in on the conversations at the tables around me, and pretend I'm a college student, even though I'm a lot older than they are. I carry books around, and I've started to smoke a pipe. It's silly, but since I belong at the lab I feel as if I'm a part of the university. I hate to go home to that lonely room. — Daniel Keyes

Where's that guy with the coffee?' 'I'm here.' Mannix had appeared. 'You went to Costa Rica for the beans? — Marian Keyes

I'm proud of what I write and feel endorsed by my readers. — Marian Keyes

I'm living at a peak of clarity and beauty I never knew existed. Every part of me is attuned to the work. I soak it up into my pores during the day, and at night - in the moments before I pass off into sleep - ideas explode into my head like fireworks. There is no greater joy than the burst of solution to a problem. Incredible that anything could happen to take away this bubbling energy, the zest that fills everything I do. It's as if all the knowledge I've soaked in during the past months has coalesced and lifted me to a peak of light and understanding. This is beauty, love, and truth all rolled into one. This is joy. — Daniel Keyes

I'm not looking for pity, I'm really not, but I'm constantly uneasy and every day it is pretty much like getting up and going to war. Once I shift into the mindset of 'Yeah, you're alive. It's tough. Let's do what we can today,' it's easier. — Marian Keyes

Just leave me alone. I'm not myself. I'm falling apart, and I don't want you here. — Daniel Keyes

I don't know why I resented it so intensely to have them think of me as something newly minted in their private treasury, but it was-I am certain-echoes of that idea that had been sounding in the chambers of my mind from the time we had arrived in Chicago. I wanted to get up and show everyone what a fool he was, to shout at him: I'm a human being, a person - with parents and memories and a history - and I was before you ever wheeled me into that operating room! — Daniel Keyes

Don't feel sorry for me. I'm glad I had a second chance in life like you said to be smart because I learned a lot of things that I never knew were in this world, and I'm grateful I saw it even for a little bit. — Daniel Keyes

No, you don't understand because it isn't happening to you, and no one can understand but me. I don't blame you. You've got your job to do, and your Ph.D. to get, and-oh, yes don't tell me, I know you're in this largely out of love of humanity, but you've got your life to live and we don't happen to belong on the same level. I passed your floor on the way up, nad now I'm passing it on the way down, and I don't think I'll be taking this elevator again. So let's just say good-bye here and now. — Daniel Keyes

Downhill. Thoughts of suicide to stop it all now while I am still in control and aware of the world around me. But then I think of Charlie waiting at the window. His life is not mine to throw away. I've just burrowed it for a while, and now I'm being asked to return it. — Daniel Keyes

I've kind of realised life is meant to be tough and everybody is in psychic and spiritual discomfort of some sort and has a burden to carry. I've realised I'm not special. — Marian Keyes

I love Prada. Not so much the clothes, which are for malnourished thirteen-year-olds, but I covet, with covety covetousness, the shoes and handbags. Like, I LOVE them. If I was given a choice between world peace and a Prada handbag, I'd dither. (I'm not proud of this, I'm only saying.) — Marian Keyes

So I'm back again to the eternal question, the one that has plagued me all my life: How Do Other People Do It? How come they were given life's rule book and I missed out? Where was I when God was dispensing capability and cop on? Looking at shoes, probably. — Marian Keyes

I'm tempted to say that the top three reasons for hopelessness are rejection, rejection, rejection. But let's cast our net wider. 1) Not being able to write as well as we hoped we could. 2) Not being able to write at all. 3) Rejection. — Ralph Keyes

20:11 At what time is it acceptable to go to bed? I suspect nothing short of 10 p.m. will do. Okay, I can wait until 10 p.m. 20:14 I go to bed. I am my own person. I can do as I please. I am not hidebound by the silly, bourgeois rules of our society. — Marian Keyes

I'm "exceptional"- a democratic term used to avoid the damning labels of "gifted" and "deprived" (which used to mean "bright" and "retarded") and as soon as "exceptional" begins to mean anything to anyone they'll change it. The idea seems to be: use an expression as long as it doesn't mean anything to anybody. "Exceptional" refers to both ends of the spectrum, so all my life I've been exceptional. — Daniel Keyes

I'm glad I'm feeling this way. I'm really glad."
Dr. Keyes looked rather dismayed. "Really, sweetheart?"
"Yes. And I don't want to let it go. Not yet. I'm just starting to feel it. And it feels ... I don't know. Right, I guess. Maybe even ... good. — James Patterson

The problem, dear professor, is that you wanted someone who could be made intelligent but still be kept in a cage and displayed when necessary to reap the honors you seek. The hitch is that I'm a person. — Daniel Keyes

I need you to get inside Wayne's head. I need someone who thinks a bit left field and in your own unpleasant way, Helen Walsh, you're a genius.
He had a point. I'm lazy and illogical. I've limited people skills. I'm easily bored and easily irritated. But I have moments of brilliance. They come and they go and I can't depend on them but they do happen. — Marian Keyes

This is the right place." He scratches his chin. "Is it? Hmm." My eyes narrow. "Do you actually live here?" Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure Crosbie lives in a frat house and always will. "Technically? — Julianna Keyes

So even if I'm getting intelligent and learning a lot of new things, he thinks I'm still a boy about women. It's confusing, but I'm going to find out all about my life. — Daniel Keyes

He said, "Dance for me," and he said,
"You are too beautiful for the wind
To pick at, or the sun to burn." He said,
"I'm a poor tattered thing, but not unkind
To the sad dancer and the dancing dead. — Sidney Keyes

The bestseller charts, a sure indicator of public taste, tell us with relentless frequency that Marian Keyes or Jeffrey Archer is a better author, by some dizzying six-figure sum, both in numbers of copies and money, than, say, J. M. Coetzee or Patrick White. Are they right? — Neel Mukherjee

I knew my transformation was complete when Dr.Keyes asked, "How are you feeling today, Tandy?" and I responded "I'm not — James Patterson

I'm like a man who's been half-asleep all his life, trying to find out what he was like before he woke up. — Daniel Keyes

I was afraid it would come to this, but I have no patience with her now. I'm jealous of every moment away from the work - impatient with any one who tries to steal my time. — Daniel Keyes

If I didn't understand what was happening at the time, he says, then it doesn't matter. I'm no more to blame than the knife is to blame in a stabbing, or the car in a collision.
"But I'm not an inanimate object," I argued. "I'm a person."
He looked confused for a moment and then laughed. "Of course, Charlie. But I wasn't referring to now. I meant before the operation."
Smug, pompous - I felt like hitting him too. "I was a person before the operation. In case you forgot - "
"Yes, of course, Charlie. Don't misunderstand. But it was different ... " And then he remembered that he had to check some charts in the lab. — Daniel Keyes

I'm quite introverted but I'm not shy. — Marian Keyes