"I think being a woman is a bit like being Irish. Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second best all the same."
Iris Murdoch
"There's no disagreement that can't be solved with a good cup of tea, in the face."
The Nualas
"We are a vibrant First World country but we have a humbling Third World memory."
Mary McAleese
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"Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them."
Kate O'Brien
"I've always been melancholic. At a party, everyone would be looking at the glittering chandeliers, and I'd be looking at the waitress's cracked shoes."
Marian Keyes
"Sometimes being Irish feels like a job you never applied for. I dn't mind being Irish, but I am not a big fan of nationalism."
Anne Enright
"The people of this country are full of kindness, but always to strangers. When a relationship is required – landlady, mother, husband, wife -complications arise. They do not have the facility for intimacy."
Clare Boylan, from Black Baby (1988)
"Love matches are made by people who are content, for a month of honey, to condemn themselves to a life of vinegar."
Marguerite, Countess of Blessington
"I was elected by the women of Ireland, who instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system."
Mary Robinson
"The vote means nothing to women. We should be armed."
Edna O'Brien
"England and Ireland each turned to the other a closed, harsh, distorted face – a face that, in each case, their lovers would hardly know."
Elizabeth Bowen, from Bowen's Court (1942)
"To be honest I live among the English and have always found them honest in their business dealings. They are noble, hard-working and anxious to do the right thing. But joy eludes them, they lack the joy that the Irish have."
Fiona Shaw
"If curses come from the heart, it would be a sin. But if it is from ther lips they come, and we use them only to give force to our speech, they are a great relief to the heart."
Peig Sayers
"I feel more and more the time wasted that is not spent in Ireland."
Lady Gregory
"I had a very happy childhood, which is unsuitable if you are going to be an Irish writer."
Maeve Binchy
"It has been said that time heals all wounds. I don't agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens, but is never gone."
Rose Kennedy
"The English may batter us to pieces, but they will never succeed in breaking our spirit."
Maud Gonne
"I have a great fancy to see my own funeral before I die."
Maria Edgeworth
"God has the most wicked sense of humour."
Maureen O'Hara
Superstition is only the fear of belief, while religion is the confidence."
Marguerite, Countess of Blessington
[ The Irish Women’s Quotation Book (Somerville Press, Opens in new window ]
