Quotes from Marian Keyes

I've kind of realised life is meant to be tough and everybody is in psychic and spiritual discomfort of some sort and has a burden to carry. I've realised I'm not special.

Many nations use language simply to convey information, but it's different in Ireland. With most conversational exchanges you get an 'added extra' like the free little biscuit you sometimes get with a cappuccino in a fancy coffee place.

He seemed wild and dangerous and carefree--well, he would, would'nt he? What were motorcycles and black leather pants if not the uniform of a wild, dangerous and carefree man?

When I first met my husband, he had a very good job - company car, pension plan, grudging respect from his staff - the lot. I, on the other hand, was badly paid and devoid of ambition. Then I had a couple of books published and confounded all expectations by starting to earn more than he did.

I haven't had Botox because my face is a bit lopsided and I depend on keeping everything animated so that people don't notice.

I know of people who don't believe it, but depression is an illness, but unlike, say, a broken leg, you don't know when it'll get better.

People promise to stick with their spouse 'for richer or poorer' but it's the 'for poorer' part that causes the worry. The big shock is that the 'for richer' bit can also cause problems.

I think there is pressure on people to turn every negative into a positive, but we should be allowed to say, 'I went through something really strange and awful and it has altered me forever.'

As I get older the stars have gone from my eyes more, and I see that life is just something that has to be lived with, that it's better not to struggle.

Optimism can be relearnt.

When I was growing up, I despised Irishness. I felt our music, our television and our books were just poor imitations of what came out of Britain and America. I was all set to abandon it entirely.

I used to write in bed, starting when I woke up. I believe that creative work comes from our subconscious mind, so I try to keep the gap between sleep and writing as minimal as possible.

For feel-good fiction to work, there has to be an element of darkness.

I knew it, I just knew it! The person who had the job of writing my life's dialogue used to work on a very low budget soap opera.

why can't we love the right people? what is so wrong with us that we rush into situations to which we are manifestly unsuited, which will hurt us and others? why are we given emotions which we cannot control and which move in exact contradiction to what we really want? we are walking conflicts, internal battles on legs.

Failed relationships can be described as so much wasted make-up.

I couldn't be with people and I didn't want to be alone. Suddenly my perspective whooshed and I was far out in space, watching the world. I could see millions and millions of people, all slotted into their lives; then I could see me—I'd lost my place in the universe. It had closed up and there was nowhere for me to be. I was more lost than I had known it was possible for any human being to be.

why can't we love the right people? what is so wrong with us that we rush into situations to which we are manifestly unsuited, which will hurt us and others? why are we given emotions which we cannot control and which move in exact contradiction to what we really want? we are walking conflicts, internal battles on legs.

What doesn't kill us makes us funnier.

I had spent my whole life feeling homesick. The only difference between the two of us was that I didn't know what or where home was.

You will go on and meet someone else and I'll just be a chapter in your tale, but for me, you were, you are and you always will be, the whole story.

I never wear flats. My shoes are so high that sometimes when I step out of them, people look around in confusion and ask, "Where'd she go?" and I have to say, "I'm down here.

The feel of them (books) and the smell of them. A bookshop was like an Aladdin's cave for me. Entire worlds and lives can be found just behind that glossy cover. All you had to do was look." Claire (Watermelon)

You know what it's like. Sometimes, you meet a wonderful person, but it's only for a brief instant. Maybe on vacation or on a train or maybe even in a bus line. And they touch your life for a moment, but in a special way. And instead of mourning because they can't be with you for longer, or because you don't get the chance to know them better, isn't it better to be glad that you met them at all?