Quotes from Roddy Doyle

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

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

Dreaming was only nice while it lasted.

We parked our bikes on verges so they could graze.

It's the only thing sexier than a sexy woman. A sexy woman cooking fuckin' sausages.

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

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.

Sometimes, when you were thinking about something, trying to understand it, it opened up in your head without you expecting it to, like it was a soft spongy light unfolding, and you understood, it made sense forever…

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.

I swooned the first time I saw Charlo. I actually did. I didn't faint or fall on the floor but my legs went rubbery on me and I giggled. I suddenly knew that I had lungs because they were empty and collapsing.

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

There were days when I didn't exist; he saw through me and walked around me. I was invisible. There were days when I liked not existing. I closed down, stopped thinking, stopped looking...There were days when I couldn't even feel pain. They were the best ones. I could see it happening. There was no ground under me, nothing to fall to. I was able to not care. I could float. I didn't exist

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.

He loved me and he beat me. I loved him and I took it. It's as simple as that, and as stupid and complicated. It's terrible. It's like knowing someone you love is dead but not having the body to prove it. He loved me. I know it.

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

Head in the book. Nose sliding down the valley between the pages.

I live on an island called Ireland where most of the music is shite. I grew up listening to "Danny Boy"; I grew up hating Danny Boy, and all his siblings and his granny. "The pipes, the pipes are caw-haw-hawing." Anything with pipes or fiddles or even - forgive me, Paul - banjos, I detested. Songs of loss, of love, of going across the sea; songs of defiance and rebellion - I vomited on all of them.

It was frightening, though, how little time you got. You only became yourself when you were twenty-three or twenty-four. A few years later, you had an old man's chest hair. It wasn't worth it.

I love yeh, son, said Jimmy Sr. He could say it and no one could hear him, except young Jimmy, because of the singing and roaring and breaking glasses. -I think you're fuckin' great, said Jimmy Sr. -Ah fuck off, will yeh, said Jimmy Jr. -Packie saved the fuckin' penalty, not me. But he liked what he'd heard, Jimmy Sr could tell that. He gave Jimmy Sr a dig in the stomach. -You're not a bad oul' cunt yourself, he said.

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

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

I knew all the books in the house. I knew their shapes and smells. I knew what pages would open if I held them with the spine on the ground and let the sides drop. I knew all the books but I couldn't remember the name of the one on my head.

I cried, a bit, as a spoke to Belinda on my mobile phone, in a quiet corner, perhaps the only quiet corner in Jaipur. I told her how I'd hoped Paul would read the forward, that he'd read how much I admired his work and how much I admired him, how much I just plain liked him and loved him. But, even as I spoke, I knew: Paul had always known that. He'd seen in on my face every time we met. What made me cry was the obvious, stupid fact that we'd never meet again.

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