Best 72 quotes of Maeve Binchy on MyQuotes

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.

An English journalist called Michael Viney told me when I was 25, that I would write well if I cared a lot what I was writing about. That worked. I went home that day and wrote about parents not understanding their children as well as we teachers did, and it was published the very next week.

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.

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

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.

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

I am not a member of Fat Liberation, nor do I think that obesity is healthy. But I do believe that in many ways my life has been a more charmed and happy one because I was always large.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

If I had my life to live all over again, I really think I would have been a fit person. Looking around me, I realise that the men and women who walked and ran and swam and played sport look better and feel better than the rest of us.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I love thriller writers. My favourites are Harlan Coban, Lee Child, Ian Rankin, Kathy Reichs and Ed McBain.

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

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.'

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.

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 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.

In Ireland every place you visit and every person you meet has a story. And they love to tell you their stories. Everyone is interested in everything; in a land of storytellers, you will never be bored.

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

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.

I remember watching myself on video and being so disappointed with myself because I was constantly moving around the place and laughing. I thought, 'I must be so much louder than I think I am. From inside it feels fine.'

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.

I think I was dealt a good hand. I have happy genes.

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.

I try to make my characters kind of ordinary, somebody that anybody could be. Because we've all had loves, perhaps love and loss, people can relate to my characters.

It was so silly to try to define things by words. What did one person mean by infatuation or obsession and another mean by love. The whole thing couldn't be tidied away with neat little labels." - Lena Gray

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

I was lucky enough to be fairly quick at understanding what was taught, but unlucky enough not to be really interested in it, so I always got my exams but never had the scholar's love of learning for its own sake.

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.

Money doesn't make you happy, but it gives a zone of comfort around you.

My brother married young, and his is the best marriage I know.

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!

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.

My mother was a trained nurse, and she'd tell me that patients would fight as they were administered anaesthetic, grappling to get the gas mask off their face.

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

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.