Quotes from A Week in Winter

Maeve Binchy ·  464 pages

Rating: (35.4K votes)


“How will I explain it all … to everybody?” “You know, people don’t have to explain things nearly as much as you think they do.”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from A Week in Winter


“It’s a funny old world. Once you realize that, you’re halfway there.”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from A Week in Winter


“Her life was like her house—a colorful fantasy where anything was possible if you wanted it badly enough.”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from A Week in Winter


“a piper from the area called John Paul. Of course he did. Everyone knew”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from A Week in Winter


“Winnie’s silver-and-black jacket might be too dressy. She wore a”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from A Week in Winter



About the author

Maeve Binchy
Born place: in Dalkey, County Dublin, Ireland
Born date May 28, 1940
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Popular quotes

“I jumped then. It seemed I heard a child laugh. My imagination, of course. And then, when I should have known better, I headed for the closet and the high and narrow door at the very back end and the steep and narrow dark stairs. A million times I’d ascended these stairs. A million times in the dark, without a candle, or a flashlight. Up into the dark, eerie, gigantic attic, and only when I was there did I feel around for the place where Chris and I had hidden our candles and matches.

Still there. Time did stand still in this place. We’d had several candle holders, all of pewter with small handles to grasp. Holders we’d found in an old trunk along with boxes and boxes of short, stubby, clumsily made candles. We’d always presumed them to be homemade candles, for they had smelled so rank and old when they burned.

My breath caught! Oh! It was the same! The paper flowers still dangled down, mobiles to sway in the drafts, and the giant flowers were still on the walls. Only all the colors had faded to indistinct gray—ghost flowers. The sparkling gem centers we’d glued on had loosened, and now only a few daisies had sequins, or gleaming stones, for centers. Carrie’s purple worm was there only now he too was a nothing color. Cory’s epileptic snail didn’t appear a bright, lopsided beach ball now, it was more a tepid, half-rotten squashy orange. The BEWARE signs Chris and I had painted in red were still on the walls, and the swings still dangled down from the attic rafters. Over near the record player was the barre Chris had fashioned, then nailed to the wall so I could practice my ballet positions. Even my outgrown costumes hung limply from nails, dozens of them with matching leotards and worn out pointe shoes, all faded and dusty, rotten smelling.

As in an unhappy dream I was committed to, I drifted aimlessly toward the distant schoolroom, with the candelight flickering. Ghosts were unsettled, memories and specters followed me as things began to wake up, yawn and whisper. No, I told myself, it was only the floating panels of my long chiffon wings . . . that was all. The spotted rocking-horse loomed up, scary and threatening, and my hand rose to my throat as I held back a scream. The rusty red wagon seemed to move by unseen hands pushing it, so my eyes took flight to the blackboard where I’d printed my enigmatic farewell message to those who came in the future. How was I to know it would be me?

We lived in the attic,

Christopher, Cory, Carrie and me—

Now there are only three.

Behind the small desk that had been Cory’s I scrunched down, and tried to fit my legs under. I wanted to put myself into a deep reverie that would call up Cory’s spirit that would tell me where he lay.”
― V.C. Andrews, quote from Petals on the Wind


“You seem to vacillate between assistance and assault. Which is it?'
'I'm not surprised you've driven three men to try and kill you, I'm only surprised there weren't more,' said Damen, bluntly.
'There were,' said Laurent, 'more.”
― C.S. Pacat, quote from Captive Prince


“Her eyes took hold upon mine and clung there, and bound us together like the joining of hands; and the moments we thus stood face to face, drinking each other in, were sacramental and the wedding of souls.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, quote from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror


“Murphy watched me thoughtfully for several empty seconds. Then she said, very gently, "You're a good man, Harry."

I swallowed and bowed my head, made humble by the tone of her voice and the expression on her face, more than the words themselves.

Not always rational," she said, smiling. "But you're the best kind of crazy.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Changes


“You have never been poor, and never known what ambition is.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from An Ideal Husband


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