Moorehawke Trilogy Quotes & Sayings

(CBI lecture, Dublin, 2008. Speaking on the challenges presented by The Moorehawke Trilogy to the YA reader)
You can't choose any of these characters and say, 'Yes! I'm completely on your side. You are the good guy! You are the one I agree with.' Because at some stage along the way every single one of these characters will let you down. They may not want to. They may have no choice. But they will let you down. — Celine Kiernan

Women writers of all people should know better than to pigeonhole women, put them in little groups, the smart one, the sweet one. — Anna Quindlen

You only get one life. And before you know it, it'll be over. You'll go to sleep one day in your twenties, then wake up in your fifties. The purpose of life isn't to sit around waiting for something to happen on a wing and prayer; you have to make it happen. You can spend your whole life searching for unsolved mysteries or waiting for someone to fall in love with you, but at the end of your life you'll realize you've wasted your time. You've missed all of the beauty in the world in search of a vague dream or an answer to a question that has none. The purpose of life isn't to wait for things to fall into your lap. The purpose of life is to live. — Brent Saltzman

My greatest urge in life is to do nothing. It's not even an absence of motivation, a lack, for I do have a strong urge: to do nothing. To down tools, to stop. Except I know that if I do that I will fall into despair, and I know that it is worth doing anything in one's power to avoid depression because from there, from being depressed, it is only an imperceptible step to despair: the last refuge of the ego. — Geoff Dyer

I'd rather have huge success and huge failures than travel in the middle of the road. — Kevyn Aucoin

Owl Poem
One has to say this for the rounds of life
that keep coming and going; it has worked so far.
The rabbit, after all, has never asked if the grass
wanted to live.
Any more than the owl consults with the rabbit.
Acceptance of the world requires
that I bow even to you,
Master of the night. — Mary Oliver

Interview on The Skiffy and Fanty Show 2010. In response to query that young adults may not be open to the nuances/realism in Moorehawke:

'(In fact)young adult readers seem to (be very inclined)to reading the (Moorehawke) books thematically. Some (not all) adult reviewers ... tend to be very plot oriented. Because the books are a slow release of information and very character driven ... (they) don't reward impatient reading ... but young adults seem to be very patient readers. They're very analytical as well. I get very analytical responses from my young adult readers. — Celine Kiernan

gigantic shift and he had no way to find out what had happened. — Ophelia Julien

I think I'm heading into a time in my life where words and labels will lose their meaning. It will only be the intent behind them that will matter. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Man actually needs the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. — Joseph Campbell

The voice sank through luce's skin and straight into her heart. Daniel's voice. He was calling to her. He wanted her. Needed her. Luce moved towards the sound — Lauren Kate

What is the tactful, the effective way of announcing that your life's work has been wasted? — Francis Spufford

John Kerry will be the Democratic nominee for president. Democrats finally found someone who is Al Gore without the flash and the sizzle. — Craig Kilborn

We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state, and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable. — John Mackey

The idea of formulated 'rights ... comes not from John Locke and Thomas Jefferson ... but from the canon law of the Catholic Church. — Thomas E. Woods Jr.

Political union means transferring the prerogatives of national legislatures to the European parliament, which would then decide how to structure Europe's fiscal, banking, and monetary union. — Barry Eichengreen

I don't know if you'll see me jumping out of planes anytime soon. — Jason Biggs