Maeve Binchy Quotes

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Maeve Binchy

Profession : Novelist

Birth : May 28, 1939

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

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

Maeve Binchy

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

Maeve Binchy

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.'

Maeve Binchy

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.

Maeve Binchy

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.

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

You don't wear all your jewellery at once. You're much more believable if you talk in your own voice.

Maeve Binchy

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

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

If you woke up each morning, and immediately dwelt on your ills, what sort of a day could you look forward to?

Maeve Binchy

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

Maeve Binchy

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.

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

Maeve Binchy

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

Maeve Binchy

That's the kind of motif I bring to the books - that people take charge of their own lives.

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