what makes us so afraid is the thing we half see, or half hear, as in a wood at dusk, when a tree stump becomes an animal and a sound becomes a siren…

- Edna O'Brien

Irish? In truth I would not want to be anything else. It is a state of mind as well as an actual country. It is being at odds withother nationalities…

- Edna O'Brien

Love . . . is like nature, but in reverse; first it fruits, then it flowers, then it seems to wither, then it goes deep, deep down into its burrow, w…

- Edna O'Brien

In a way Winter is the real Spring - the time when the inner things happen, the resurgence of nature.

- Edna O'Brien

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 ever…

- Edna O'Brien

Sometimes one word can recall a whole span of life.

- Edna O'Brien

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 …

- Edna O'Brien

Ordinary life bypassed me, but I also bypassed it. It couldn't have been any other way.Conventional life and conventional people are not for me.

- Edna O'Brien

... we have so many voices in us, how do we know which ones to obey?

- Edna O'Brien