Skip to content

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

— Edna O'Brien Country Girl: a Memoir (2012)

Another quote →

Topics

Writing

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.

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.

The vote, I thought, means nothing to women, we should be armed.

All Edna O'Brien quotes →

You may also like

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings.”

Suman Pokhrel

The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

Robert Benchley

Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.

William Wordsworth Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

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.