Maeve Binchy Quotes

We're nothing if we're not loved. When you meet somebody who is more important to you than yourself, that has to be the most important thing in life, really. And I think we are all striving for it in different ways. I also believe very, very strongly that everybody is the hero/heroine of his/her own life. 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

— Maeve Binchy

“She put her head down on the table and cried all the tears that she knew she should have cried in the past year and a half. But they weren't ready then, they were now.”

— Maeve Binchy

“You can't marry an ungenerous man; there's no joy in his soul.”

— Maeve Binchy

“And he said nothing. Just put his arms around her more closely as the whole heart clinic and their friends and relations danced to the music of "Hey Jude".”

— Maeve Binchy

“A silly idea about a book of blessings couldn't really work. Not seriously.”

— Maeve Binchy

“He thought about how life never turns out like you think and hope it will.”

— Maeve Binchy

“My mother hoped I would meet a nice doctor or barrister or accountant who would marry me and take me to live in what is now called Fashionable Dublin Four. But she felt that this was a vain hope. I was a bit loud to make a nice professional wife, and anyway, I was too keen on spending my holidays in far flung places to meet any of these people.”

— Maeve Binchy

“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.”

— Maeve Binchy

“I suppose, to be fair, I don't miss the energy of youth very much - because I was never fit. So it doesn't matter not being able to walk miles, striding the countryside, taking deep breaths and enjoying the scenery. That was never on my agenda.”

— Maeve Binchy

“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.”

— Maeve Binchy

“We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. Our love stories are amazingly romantic; our losses and betrayals and disappointments are gigantic in our own minds.”

— Maeve Binchy

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

— Maeve Binchy

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

— Maeve Binchy

“I once tried to write a novel about revenge. It's the only book I didn't finish. I couldn't get into the mind of the person who was plotting vengeance.”

— Maeve Binchy

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.

— Maeve Binchy

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.

— Maeve Binchy

We have to make our own happiness, and we have to make our own decisions and play the hand that is dealt to us.

— Maeve Binchy

“Her life was like her house-a colorful fantasy where anything was possible if you wanted it badly enough.”

— Maeve Binchy

“Her bed felt huge and empty now, and when she slept, she did so with her arm around a pillow. She dreamed of him almost every night, sometimes good dreams of happy days and joyful times; often they were terrible dreams of abandonment, loss and sorrow. She didn't know which was worse: every morning she woke afresh to the knowledge that he was gone and he would never come back. It would never be all right again.”

— Maeve Binchy

“That Dr. Morrissey had always said that we found excuses to put off doing something that would take our minds off our worries. It was as if we didn't want to lose the luxury of worrying.”

— Maeve Binchy

Most people, once the money started getting bigger, thought we would buy a millionaire's house looking out at the sea - but what would two middle-aged people do that for? We were sensible enough when we got it.

— Maeve Binchy

“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.”

— Maeve Binchy

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

— Maeve Binchy

“I've had a good life, full of more success and happiness than I ever expected.”

— Maeve Binchy

“If you're going on a plane journey, you're more likely to take one of my stories than 'Finnegan's Wake.'”

— Maeve Binchy

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

— Maeve Binchy

“I didn't get excited by weight loss, and since I was already happy being fat, I couldn't see the point of it all. I'm 6 ft. and weigh about 18 st. or 19 st., but weighing myself is not something I do with much pleasure.”

— Maeve Binchy

“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.”

— Maeve Binchy

“When my sister Joan arrived, I asked if I could swap her for a rabbit. When I think what a marvellous friend she's been, I'm so glad my parents didn't take me at my word.”

— Maeve Binchy

“In my books, there is no 'ugly duckling turning into a beautiful swan' syndrome because if you look at the Hansel and Gretel syndrome, it was a mistake. It wasn't a duckling, it was a cygnet, and that's why it turned into a swan. The duckling should with any luck turn into a nice clucking duck and get on with its life. Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!”

— Maeve Binchy

All I ever wanted to do is to write stories that people will enjoy and feel at home with.

— Maeve Binchy

“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.”

— Maeve Binchy

I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation. I'm an escapist kind of writer.

— Maeve Binchy

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.

— Maeve Binchy

“I think you've got to play the hand that you're dealt and stop wishing for another hand.”

— Maeve Binchy

“I was fat, and that was awful because when you're young and sensitive, you think the world is over because you're fat.”

— Maeve Binchy

I was just lucky I lived in this time of mass-market paperbacks.

— Maeve Binchy

“I wore miniskirts in the days when no fat girls should have, and with total delight.”

— Maeve Binchy

“I've seen a lot of people buy my books and then fall asleep on the plane soon afterwards.”

— Maeve Binchy

“If you don't go to a dance, you can never be rejected, but you'll never get to dance, either.”

— Maeve Binchy

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

— Maeve Binchy

“Of course I wanted children. Bright, gorgeous, loving children. I could almost see them.”

— Maeve Binchy

I was very pleased, obviously, to have outsold great writers. But I'm not insane - I do realise that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation.

— Maeve Binchy

“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!”

— Maeve Binchy

“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.”

— Maeve Binchy

“We asked our friends and relations to lend us their children, and, because we lived in London, children loved to come and stay for their half-term holidays.”

— Maeve Binchy

When I was teaching Latin in girls' schools before I became a writer, I didn't much like it if parents would come in and say, 'We'll have less of the Ovid and Virgil and more of the grammar, please.' After all, I was the one in charge. That's how I feel about doctors. You should trust them to do their job properly.

— Maeve Binchy

“You can't lay down laws for what people think and hope.”

— Maeve Binchy

“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.”

— Maeve Binchy

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.

— Maeve Binchy