Roddy Doyle Quotes

If there is a heaven, Jane Austen is sitting in a small room with Mother Teresa and Princess Diana, listening to Duran Duran, forever. If there's a hell, she's standing.

I'm not recognised that much. I'm just a bald man in glasses and there's a rash of them in Dublin. It'd be different if I had a mohican.

You know people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it.

It's a big con job. We have sold the myth of Dublin as a sexy place incredibly well; because it is a dreary little dump most of the time.

Some of the people who look the most normal are probably the maddest people trying to look normal.

I see people in terms of dialogue and I believe that people are their talk.

Good ideas are often murdered by better ones.

When I'm writing I just think there's only the page and me and nobody else.

If you are a writer you're at home, which means you're out of touch. You have to make excuses to get out there and look at how the world is changing.

It's great meeting children because you never know what they will say.

I wouldn't go out of my way to experience the indignity of middle-age just because it might be good meat for a story.

She'd tried her hand at most things, but drew the line at honesty.

The Irish are the niggers of Europe, lads.

To claim that music is more important than oxygen would be trite and sentimental. It would also be true.

When you grow up on an island, what matters is how you stand to the sea.

Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's part of any endeavour, not just writing.

It was a sign of growing up, when the dark made no more difference to you than the day.

I tend to plan as I write. And I want to leave myself open and the character open to keep on going until it seems to be the time to stop.

I'm going to sound like an old man but at my age, it's lovely doing something that you've never done before.

I don't work to any commissions. I do what I want to do.

I do enjoy Gothic fiction or books about zombies if they are well written and I like vampires.

I like naming characters.

It's hard for me to measure them, or to assess my books because I'm so close to them.

When I was growing up, the exam system didn't allow you to write fiction, so you never did.

Dreaming was only nice while it lasted.

I wasn't even aware of the Year of the Family. I couldn't give a toss. These things - the year of the family, the year of the three-legged dog. I think it's all trash.

She's a pot-of-tea-before-I-say-boo-to-you woman. There's always a pile of warm teabags in the sink when I come down, like what a horse would leave behind.

Most working days I can be at my desk for nine hours a day.

I write short stories when a little idea occurs to me, that I know isn't a part of a novel that will stand by itself and should be concentrated.

My parents were sixty years married.

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.

Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Sometimes adults seem as though they have cut a chord from being a child.

The best way to reveal a character is to get them to open their mouths.

The problem with being Irish... is having 'Riverdance' on your back. It's a burden at times.

Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's a valid part of any endeavour, not just writing.

I was the ref. I was the ref they didn’t know about. Deaf and dumb. Invisible as a wall. I wanted no one to win

Do ghosts drink tea?They don't, said Tansey. But this ghost would love to see a cup of tea in front of her. It'd be lovely.

If you were going to be best friends with anyone - Kevin - you had to hate a lot of other people, the two of you, together. It made you better friends.

Mary, ' said her mother. 'We don't like sarcasm ' 'You mightn't like it, ' said Mary. 'But I love it.

I jumped on Sinbad's bottle. Nothing happened. I didn't do it again. Sometimes when nothing happened it was really getting ready to happen

We parked our bikes on verges so they could graze.

She’s happier than Nicola. That’s probably true. Alcoholics can stop drinking but what is there for the children of alcoholics? Is it always too late? Probably. She doesn’t know.