Roddy Doyle famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

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

You may also like:

Alan Parker
Film director
Anne Enright
Author
Colm Meaney
Actor
Colum McCann
Writer
Dave Eggers
Writer
David Almond
Author
Dermot Bolger
Novelist
Eoin Colfer
Author
John Banville
Novelist
Maeve Binchy
Novelist
Margo Lanagan
Writer
Maria Doyle Kennedy
Actress
Nick Hornby
Novelist
Roy Keane
Football manager
Seamus Heaney
Poet
Sebastian Barry
Playwright
Stephen Frears
Film director
Tim Wynne-Jones
Author
Edna O'Brien
Novelist
Joseph O'Connor
Novelist