Maeve Binchy Quotes

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Maeve Binchy

Profession : Novelist

Birth : May 28, 1939

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

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

My mother was a trained nurse, and she'd tell me that patients would fight as they were administered anaesthetic, grappling to get the gas mask off their face.

Maeve Binchy

When I was being brought up, we weren't allowed to wallow in self-pity, which was a thoroughly good thing. We were all fine and healthy because that was what we were told to be.

Maeve Binchy

I'm particularly fond of boned chicken breasts with a little garlic under the flesh and cooked in a casserole for 40 minutes with a jar of olives, some cherry tomatoes and a spoonful of olive oil.

Maeve Binchy

My family life reads a bit like 'Little House on the Prairie.' I was big sister to Joan, Renee, and brother William, and we grew up in Dalkey, a little town 10 miles outside of Dublin. It was a secure, safe and happy childhood, which was meant to be a disadvantage when it comes to writing stories about family dramas.

Maeve Binchy

Growing up in Ireland, there never seemed to be the notion that children should be seen and not heard. We all looked forward to mealtimes when we'd sit around the table and talk about our days. Storytelling and long, rambling conversations were considered good things.

Maeve Binchy

On the first day of school, my father told me I'd be the most popular girl and everyone would love me and want to be my friend. It wasn't so, but it gave me an enormous amount of confidence.

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

Maeve Binchy

If I see Marian Keyes' books or Patricia Scanlan's books given more prominence than mine in the bookstore, I'll move mine to the front. I've told them I do this, and they've confessed to doing the same thing to me.

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 remember watching myself on video and being so disappointed with myself because I was constantly moving around the place and laughing. I thought, 'I must be so much louder than I think I am. From inside it feels fine.'

Maeve Binchy

I didn't have a sweet tooth, but I liked butter, and I liked sauces, and I liked wine... and curry... and cheeses.

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

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

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

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

I have been blessed with friends who do things rather than buy things: friends who will change books at the library, take a bag of your old clothes to a thrift store, bring you cuttings and plant them in a window box, fill the bird feeder in your garden when you can't get out.

Maeve Binchy