Roddy Doyle famous quotes

04-17-2025

If there is a heaven, Jane Austen is sitting in a small room with Mother Teresa and Princess Diana, listening to Duran Duran, forever. If there's a hell, she's standing.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Mother #Princess #Small Rooms
Good ideas are often murdered by better ones.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Ideas #Good Ideas
Do be kind to yourself. Fill pages as quickly as possible; double space, or write on every second line. Regard every new page as a small triumph. Until you get to page 50. Then calm down, and start worrying about the quality. Do feel anxiety - it's the job.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Jobs #Writing #Space
I see people in terms of dialogue and I believe that people are their talk.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Believe #People #Term
You know people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Book #People #Doubt
Some of the people who look the most normal are probably the maddest people trying to look normal.
-- Roddy Doyle

#People #Trying #Looks
To claim that music is more important than oxygen would be trite and sentimental. It would also be true.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Oxygen #Important #Would Be
No matter how close to personal experience a story might be, inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and, actually, whether it happened or not becomes irrelevant. It is all about choosing the right words.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Stories #Might #Matter
When I'm writing I just think there's only the page and me and nobody else.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Writing #Thinking #Pages
It's a big con job. We have sold the myth of Dublin as a sexy place incredibly well; because it is a dreary little dump most of the time.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Sexy #Jobs #Dublin
It was a sign of growing up, when the dark made no more difference to you than the day.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Growing Up #Dark #Differences
The problem with being Irish... is having 'Riverdance' on your back. It's a burden at times.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Problem #Burden #Being Irish
She'd tried her hand at most things, but drew the line at honesty.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Honesty #Hands #Lines
The best way to reveal a character is to get them to open their mouths.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Character #Mouths #Way
If you are a writer you're at home, which means you're out of touch. You have to make excuses to get out there and look at how the world is changing.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Home #Mean #Looks
If you're from Dublin, for example, chances are you live with your family, if you're lucky enough to, right up to the mid-20s. And most of the people I know, when they finally sort of set off on their own, they don't stray all that far.
-- Roddy Doyle

#People #Example #Lucky
When I was a kid, if you didn't speak Irish, you really wanted to. And you played Gaelic games and you didn't pay any attention to what was happening in the outside world, because really, the - Ireland was the center of the universe. And I don't think that's the case anymore, although, admittedly, it is the center of the universe.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Kids #Thinking #Games
Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's part of any endeavour, not just writing.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Writing #School #Endeavour
Sometimes adults seem as though they have cut a chord from being a child.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Children #Cutting #Adults
Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Suicide #Photograph #Favourite
My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Want #Novel #Feels
It's great meeting children because you never know what they will say.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Children #Meetings #Knows
I'm not recognised that much. I'm just a bald man in glasses and there's a rash of them in Dublin. It'd be different if I had a mohican.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Men #Glasses #Different
I write short stories when a little idea occurs to me, that I know isn't a part of a novel that will stand by itself and should be concentrated.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Writing #Ideas #Stories
Dreaming was only nice while it lasted.
-- Roddy Doyle

#Dream #Nice

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