-
I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turn into confident ducks.
Maeve Binchy -
I am a big, confident, happy woman who had a loving childhood, a pleasant career, and a wonderful marriage. I feel very lucky.
Maeve Binchy
-
As a memorial, I'd like a statue. Not of me, but a little modern statue, in marble or bronze, maybe of a bird, in a park where children could play and people going by could see it. On it, I'd just like it to say: 'Maeve Binchy, storyteller' and people could look at the name and remember that they'd seen it somewhere else.
Maeve Binchy -
Nobody ever wins by the cavalry coming to rescue you. It isn't a question of you're happy if you get married, or you get thin, or you get rich, because I've known lots of thin, rich, married people who are absolutely miserable.
Maeve Binchy -
I have always believed that life is too short for rows and disagreements. Even if I think I'm right, I would prefer to apologize and remain friends rather than win and be an enemy.
Maeve Binchy -
The most important thing to realise is that everyone is capable of telling a story. It doesn't matter where we were born or how we grew up.
Maeve Binchy -
You say to yourself: 'What could people, in all these countries, find in my books?' and yet I think we're all the same, anywhere. Everybody is a hero or a dramatic person in their own story if you just know where to look.
Maeve Binchy -
I thought it must be desperate to be old. To wake up in the morning and remember that you were ancient - and so behave that way. I thought old people were full of aches and pains and horrible illnesses.
Maeve Binchy
-
I once tried to write a novel about revenge. It's the only book I didn't finish. I couldn't get into the mind of the person who was plotting vengeance.
Maeve Binchy -
When I was younger, I avoided exercise or anything strenuous. I didn't even enjoy walking. As I got older, I spent so much time marking books or sitting at a desk writing that there was no room for exercise - not that I would have bothered anyway.
Maeve Binchy -
I have been lucky enough to travel a lot, meet great people in many lands. I have liked almost everyone I met along the way.
Maeve Binchy -
I think you've got to play the hand that you're dealt and stop wishing for another hand.
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 -
If I had my life to live all over again, I really think I would have been a fit person. Looking around me, I realise that the men and women who walked and ran and swam and played sport look better and feel better than the rest of us.
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 -
The biggest influence on my books was the fact that I had worked in a newspaper for so long. In a daily paper, you learn to write very quickly; there is no time to sit and brood about what you are going to say.
Maeve Binchy -
If you're going on a plane journey, you're more likely to take one of my stories than 'Finnegan's Wake.'
Maeve Binchy -
We're nothing if we're not loved. When you meet somebody who is more important to you than yourself, that has to be the most important thing.
Maeve Binchy -
All I ever wanted to do is to write stories that people will enjoy and feel at home with.
Maeve Binchy -
I'm pleased to have outsold great writers. But I'm not insane - I realize I am a writer people buy to take on vacation.
Maeve Binchy
-
My brother married young, and his is the best marriage I know.
Maeve Binchy -
I love thriller writers. My favourites are Harlan Coban, Lee Child, Ian Rankin, Kathy Reichs and Ed McBain.
Maeve Binchy -
An English journalist called Michael Viney told me when I was 25, that I would write well if I cared a lot what I was writing about. That worked. I went home that day and wrote about parents not understanding their children as well as we teachers did, and it was published the very next week.
Maeve Binchy -
I am much more understanding of people than I used to be when I was young - people were either villainous or wonderful. They were painted in very bright colours. The bad side of it - and there is a corollary to everything - is that when we get older, we fuss more. I used to despise people who fussed.
Maeve Binchy