Quotes from Tara Road

Maeve Binchy ·  648 pages

Rating: (65.6K votes)


“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


About the author

Maeve Binchy
Born place: in Dalkey, County Dublin, Ireland
Born date May 28, 1940
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“The world of being is unchangeable, rigid, exact, delightful to the mathematician, the logician, the builder of metaphysical systems, and all who love perfection more than life. The world of existence is fleeting, vague, without sharp boundaries, without any clear plan or arrangement, but it contains all thoughts and feelings, all the data of sense, and all physical objects, everything that can do either good or harm, everything that makes any difference to the value of life and the world. According to our temperaments, we shall prefer the contemplation of the one or of the other.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Problems of Philosophy


“I wasn’t a witch until last Wednesday,” Lauren said.  “I don’t know how to handle this.” “You’ve always been a witch, sweetheart.  You just didn’t know.”
― Debora Geary, quote from A Modern Witch


“Catharsis. Revenge cleanses. Aristotle wrote that the human soul is purged by the fear and compassion that tragedy evokes. It’s a frightening thought that we fulfil the soul’s innermost desire through the tragedy of revenge, isn’t it.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Nemesis


“You just stay careful." Tawyer prodded Kail with his truncheon. "Can't blame the warden for getting angry. Byn-kodar's hell, all she had to do was show a little respect!"
"Oh, damn, Tawyer, you're right," Kail said as he and Loch turned a corner on the pipe, their leg-chains protesting the uneven fittings with shrill screeches. "I guess she has to die. What was I thinking?”
― Patrick Weekes, quote from The Palace Job


“I owned a Ferrari, a Range Rover, a Mercedes 560SL convertible, a Jeep Cherokee and a Nissan 300ZX. I can't remember the intricate decision tree I had to climb in order to determine which one to drive to work on any given day - it probably had something to do with the weather, or which car had more gas in the tank, or upholstery that best matched whatever shirt I happened to throw on that morning.”
― Michael J. Fox, quote from Lucky Man


Interesting books

Gangsta Granny
(8.3K)
Gangsta Granny
by David Walliams
The Rebel Angels
(4.4K)
The Rebel Angels
by Robertson Davies
Everything We Keep
(81.9K)
Everything We Keep
by Kerry Lonsdale
The Land of Laughs
(4.8K)
The Land of Laughs
by Jonathan Carroll
The Uplift War
(21.8K)
The Uplift War
by David Brin
Bread Givers
(4.2K)
Bread Givers
by Anzia Yezierska

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.