“I look placid, you see, that's why people think I'm fine. Inside I worry a lot.”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from Tara Road
“She put her head down on the table and cried all the tears that she knew she should have cried in the past year and a half. But they weren't ready then, they were now.”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from Tara Road
“If you had your time all over again....? She was keen to know.
You can't rewrite history. I have no idea what I'd do.”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from Tara Road
“Listen to me, Ria. It will be different when you and I have a home. It will be a real home, one that people will want to come running back to.”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from Tara Road
“It was quite possible that she had lost the capacity to love and care anymore and that this is how she was going to be for the rest of her life.”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from Tara Road
“He had not known it was possible to love a little human being as he loved Annie.”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from Tara Road
“anyway, encouraging her daughter in breaking up another man’s family, having the baby of a married man? Some help and example she must have been to Bernadette if this is the way things turned out. But then Ria realized that it could not have been what that woman wanted for her daughter either. Possibly she had been horrified by it all as Ria would be horrified if her own Annie were to get involved with a middle-aged married man. Possibly the mother hadn’t been told that Danny was married at the start. And had then become suspicious. Suddenly Ria remembered the woman who had telephoned her, the voice demanding to know if she was Mrs. Danny Lynch. This was the woman. Danny had concocted some cock-and-bull story at the time, but had later admitted it. Ria would have done the same if Annie were to be involved with a married man. She would have called the house to check if his wife really existed. To speak to the enemy. This woman probably loved her daughter too. She would have wished for a boyfriend who was young and single. But who could know what a daughter was going to do? Was seeing Bernadette better than not seeing her? She sat in the car biting her lip and wondering. Possibly better. It meant that now there was no more imagining. It had cleared that area of speculation from her mind. It didn’t make it any more bearable that she was so young. Or forgivable. There was a knock on the car window and Ria jumped. For a mad moment she thought Bernadette and her mother were about to confront her. But it was the anxious face of a traffic warden. “You were not even thinking about”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from Tara Road
“well. The term “frocky” was used a lot as a derogatory description for women that Eileen and Stephanie thought were dressing just to please male egos. Yet”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from Tara Road
“would want if she were able to speak, Nora”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from Tara Road
“he must not know how much power he had to move her.”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from Tara Road
“He called everyone sweetheart. There was nothing particularly special about it.”
― Maeve Binchy, quote from Tara Road
Maeve Binchy
Born place: in Dalkey, County Dublin, Ireland
Born date May 28, 1940
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“Wherefore it would appear that this number was thus allied unto her for the purpose of signifying that, at her birth, all these nine heavens were at perfect unity with each other as to their influence. This is one reason that may be brought: but more narrowly considering, and according to the infallible truth, this number was her own self: that is to say, by similitude. As thus. The number three is the root of the number nine; seeing that without the interposition of any other number, being multiplied merely by itself, it produceth nine, as we manifestly perceive that three times three are nine. Thus, three being of itself the efficient of nine, and the Great Efficient of Miracles being of Himself Three Persons (to wit: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), which, being Three, are also One:—this lady was accompanied by the number nine to the end that men might clearly perceive her to be a nine, that is, a miracle, whose only root is the Holy Trinity. It may be that a more subtile person would find for this thing a reason of greater subtilty: but such is the reason that I find, and that liketh me best.”
― Dante Alighieri, quote from Vita Nuova
“It is the bliss of childhood that we are being warped most when we know it the least.”
― William Gaddis, quote from The Recognitions
“The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, or George or Bill Bailey -
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter -
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum -
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover -
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
“It was a strange room, the door hanging off its hinges, and yet a telephone. But its last occupant was a harlot, long past her best, which had been scarlet.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy
“Sucking in air, Heather said, “Fluffy—Mrs. Allen’s ferocious dog—chased me all the way down Pine Street trying to tear me to shreds with his razor fangs. I barely got away.”
Scarlet scrunched her face. “Isn’t Fluffy a Chihuahua?”
Still panting, Heather said, “Yes. A demon-possessed, human-eating Chihuahua.”
― Chelsea Fine, quote from Anew
This Dark Endeavor
Proxy
The Complete Poems
Fated
The Big Short: Insid...
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