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"We all leave one another. We die, we change - it's mostly change - we outgrow our best friends; but even if I do leave you, I will have passed on to you something of myself; you will be a different person because of knowing me; it's inescapable."

— Edna O'Brien Girl With Green Eyes (1962)

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More quotes by Edna O'Brien

She said the reason that love is so painful is that it always amounts to two people wanting more than two people can give.

Never forget this moment, the hum of the bee, the saffron threads of the flower, the drawn blinds, nature's assiduousness and human cruelty.

The Light of Evening (2006)

Oh, God, who does not exist, you hate women, otherwise you'd have made them different. And Jesus, who snubbed your mother, you hate them more.

That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.

Country Girl: a Memoir (2012)

It is increasingly clear that the fate of the universe will come to depend more and more on individuals as the bungling of bureaucracy permeates every corner of our existence.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Edna O'Brien (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.