Marian Keyes quotes

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.
-- Marian Keyes

#Shoes #Confusion #People

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.
-- Marian Keyes

#Love #Goes On #Stories

Chick Lit uses humor to reflect life back to us. It's a very comforting genre, and it's the first time our generation has had a voice. It's a very important genre for all of those reasons.
-- Marian Keyes

#Voice #Our Generation #Comforting

Some think love can be measured by the amount of butterflies in their tummy. Others think love can be measured in bunches of flowers, or by using the words 'for ever.' But love can only truly be measured by actions. It can be a small thing, such as peeling an orange for a person you love because you know they don't like doing it.
-- Marian Keyes

#Relationship #Flower #Butterfly

I am different when my nails are done. I am more dynamic. I gesticulate more, I am better at scaring my staff. I can indicate impatience by drumming on tabletops and I can wrap up a meeting with a few choice clatters.
-- Marian Keyes

#Choices #Nails #Different

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

#Relationship #Broken Heart #Breakup

when happiness makes a guest appearance in one's life,it's important to make the most of it.It may not stay around for long and when it has gone wouldn't it be terrible to think that all the time one could have been happy was wasted worrying when the happiness would be taken away.
-- Marian Keyes

#Taken #Thinking #Worry

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)
-- Marian Keyes

#Book #Smell #Looks

I suppose I wanted to have my cake and eat it. But then again, what were you going to do with your cake if not eat it? Frame it? Use it as a sachet in your underwear drawer?
-- Marian Keyes

#Cake #Underwear #Use

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.
-- Marian Keyes

#Home #Two #Differences

I'd rather eat nothing than eat a carrot.
-- Marian Keyes

#Carrots

Slasher Hathaway marks his territory by spending money. He might as well have pissed on her. It means nothing.
-- Marian Keyes

#Mean #Might #Territory

Baking makes me focus. On weighing the sugar. On sieving the flour. I find it calming and rewarding because, in fairness, it is sort of magic - you start off with all this disparate stuff, such as butter and eggs, and what you end up with is so totally different. And also delicious.
-- Marian Keyes

#Eggs #Focus #Magic

My friend Kathy is the only person who'll be halfway honest with me. 'Did you ever see a cowboy film, where someone has been caught by the Indians and tied between two wild stallions, each pulling in opposite directions?' she asked.I nodded mutely.'That's a bit what giving birth is like.
-- Marian Keyes

#Cowboy #Opposites #Two

The old Chinese proverb springs to mind - No pain, no gain.
-- Marian Keyes

#Pain #Spring #Chinese

Not only was he not mad, but he was a musician, and my favorite men had always been musicians or writers or anything that involved the creative process and behaving like tortured artists. ... I found financial insecurity a great aphrodisiac.
-- Marian Keyes

#Music #Men #Artist

Love and kindness go hand in hand.
-- Marian Keyes

#Kindness #Hands #Love And Kindness

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?
-- Marian Keyes

#Men #Motorcycle #Black

Failed relationships can be described as so much wasted makeup. Forget the laughs, forget the fights, forget the sex, forget the jealousy. But take off your hat and observe a moment's silence for the legions of unknown tubes of foundation, mascara, eyeliner, blusher and lipstick who died that it might all have been possible. But who died in vain.
-- Marian Keyes

#Sex #Fighting #Makeup

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.
-- Marian Keyes

#People #Botox #Faces

So I'm back again to the eternal question, the one that has plagued me all my life: How Do Other People Do It? How come they were given life's rule book and I missed out? Where was I when God was dispensing capability and cop on? Looking at shoes, probably.
-- Marian Keyes

#Book #Shoes #People

People get sick and sometimes they get better and sometimes they don't. And it doesn't matter if the sickness is cancer or if it's depression. Sometimes the drugs work and sometimes they don't. Sometimes the drugs work for a while and then they stop. Sometimes the alternative stuff works and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes you wonder if no outside interference makes any difference at all; if an illness is like a storm, if it simply has to run its course and, at the end of it, depending on how robust you are, you will be alive. Or you will be dead.
-- Marian Keyes

#Running #Cancer #Differences

Waiting to be 'better' is the wrong approach. It's learning to live with it.
-- Marian Keyes

#Waiting #Approach

It's not like you take the right turning and you get everlasting happiness and you take the wrong one and your life's a disaster. In real life it's often impossible to tell which decision is the one you should make because what you stand to gain and what you stand to lose are sometimes-often-neck and neck.
-- Marian Keyes

#Real #Decision #Gains

It was only when the salt water of my tears ran into my cuts and made them sting that I discovered I was crying.
-- Marian Keyes

#Cutting #Water #Tears

No more humiliation for me, thanks very much. No more swallowing my anger. Honestly, I couldn't manage another mouthful. But it was delicious. Did you make it yourself?
-- Marian Keyes

#Swallowing #Thanks #Humiliation

I loved being in my own head so much, it was getting harder and harder being with other people.
-- Marian Keyes

#People #Harder

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.
-- Marian Keyes

#Believe #Broken #People

There's no doubt that relationships do suffer when circumstances change profoundly.
-- Marian Keyes

#Suffering #Doubt #Circumstances

Optimism can be relearnt.
-- Marian Keyes

#Optimism

My mother is the best storyteller. And her mother was too.
-- Marian Keyes

#Mother #Storyteller

Medically speaking, there is no such thing as a nervous breakdown. Which is very annoying to discover when you're right in the middle of one.
-- Marian Keyes

#Nervous #Annoying #Middle

I've never made a secret of the fact that I'd have loved to have children.
-- Marian Keyes

#Children #Secret #Facts

I went grey at 12, my eyesight went at 17. I've been a crock from very early on.
-- Marian Keyes

#Grey #Eyesight

I still get awful depression. It's who I am.
-- Marian Keyes

#Who I Am #Awful #Stills

I like hoodies. They just make me feel safe.
-- Marian Keyes

#Hoodies #Safe #Feels

I don't like this idea of division: that if you're a clever woman then you've got to be a particular way. Because men don't. Men please themselves.
-- Marian Keyes

#Clever #Men #Ideas

I've been so showered in life, beyond my wildest dreams, such as having a loving partner I never thought I'd have.
-- Marian Keyes

#Dream #Partners #Wildest Dreams

Every day I wake up afraid that I won't be able to write, that today is the day it has left me.
-- Marian Keyes

#Writing #Able #Today

Do I mind being called a chick-lit writer? Well, it's not the worst thing that could happen.
-- Marian Keyes

#Mind #Chicks #Worst

As you know, I don't believe in fear, just an invention by men so they get all the money and good jobs.
-- Marian Keyes

#Jobs #Fear #Believe

I am prone to despair. We are all born with a particular personality. I get afraid and then I don't want to leave the house.
-- Marian Keyes

#House #Personality #Despair

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.
-- Marian Keyes

#Jobs #Writing #Opera

I wished there was some kind of switch on my brain. That I could turn it off in the same way that I could turn off the television. Just click it off and immediately empty my mind of all these images and worrying thoughts. And simply leave a blank screen. Or if I could just remove my head and put it on the bedside table and forget about it until morning. And then attach it again when I needed it.
-- Marian Keyes

#Morning #Worry #Brain

smarter than me. But here's the thing my life did get better. I made a decision to let go of my dreams, because they were killing me, and I stopped asking the impossible of myself. I changed my attitude and decided to focus on what I had rather than what i didn't have.
-- Marian Keyes

#Letting Go #Dream #Attitude

When God closes one door, He slams another in your face
-- Marian Keyes

#Doors #Faces #Your Face

They say the path of true love never runs smooth. Well, Luke and my true love's path didn't run at all, it limped along in new boots that were chafing its heels. Blistered and cut, red and raw, every hopping, lopsided step, a little slice of agony.
-- Marian Keyes

#Running #Cutting #Agony

How to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.
-- Marian Keyes

#Laughing #Plans

Why do we have such a finite capacity for pleasure but an infinite one for pain?
-- Marian Keyes

#Pain #Infinite #Pleasure

... I am more of an ambler. I once overheard my old boss in Dublin describe me as very "hello trees, hello flowers." It was intended as an insult and it fulfilled its brief; I was insulted. I had little interest in greeting trees and flowers but nor did I treat life as a treadmill, on which it was vital to keep fleeing forward in order to avoid being sucked off the back and out of the game.
-- Marian Keyes

#Flower #Order #Games

The back windows looked out over the fields, then the Atlantic, maybe a hundred yards away. Actually, I'm just making that bit up. I had no idea how far away the sea was. Only men could do things like that. "Half a mile." "Fifty yards." Giving directions, that sort of thing. I could look at a woman and say "Thirty-six C." Or "Let's try it in the next size up." But I had no idea how far away Tim's sea was except that I wouldn't want to walk to it in high heels.
-- Marian Keyes

#Men #High Heels #Sea

Hen nights should be banned. You're honour-bound to behave atrociously, then feel terribly ashamed afterwards. (This Charming Man)
-- Marian Keyes

#Night #Men #Hens

What doesn't kill us makes us funnier.
-- Marian Keyes

In an unpredictable and unpleasant world it was both unusual and very pleasant to hear what I wanted to hear.
-- Marian Keyes

#World #Unusual #Unpredictable

I'm trying..." How could I put it? "I'm trying to get far enough down the line so that I can remember." I stopped, then continued: "so that I can remember without the pain killing me" And the days were stacking up. And weeks. And months. It was now almost the middle of June and he'd died in February, but I still felt like I'd just woken from a horrible dream, that I was suspended in that stunned, paralyzed state between sleep and reality where I was grasping for, but couldn't get a handle on normality.
-- Marian Keyes

#Dream #Pain #Sleep

My truth is that what doesn't kill you makes you weaker rather than stronger, although it makes you wiser.
-- Marian Keyes

#Stronger #Truth Is #Wiser

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.
-- Marian Keyes

#Believe #Writing #Sleep

Nothing sinister. Just getting exercise. Although some might consider that sinister.
-- Marian Keyes

#Exercise #Might #Sinister

Political correctness is a minefield
-- Marian Keyes

#Political #Political Correctness

I think denial's fascinating. It's a jokey word, but it really happens, and sometimes in enormous ways.
-- Marian Keyes

#Thinking #Way #Denial

Her world had shrunk - no matter who she was with, she'd prefer to be with him. That's what happened when you fell in love - you only want to see them.
-- Marian Keyes

#Love You #Want #Matter

Relationship gurus always said that an attraction based on friendship and mutual respect was far more likely to stay the course - and the bastards were right.
-- Marian Keyes

#Guru #Said #Mutual Respect

One day we'll all be dead, and none of this will matter" -The Brightest Star in the Sky.
-- Marian Keyes

#Stars #Sky #One Day

I sighed. "What is life but fleeting moments of happiness strung together on necklace of despair?
-- Marian Keyes

#Together #Despair #Fleeting

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.
-- Marian Keyes

#Depression #Space #Perspective

(The Other side of the Story)"The best anyone can do is breathe in, breathe out and wait for it to pass".
-- Marian Keyes

#Waiting #Sides #Stories

You've recognised a fundamental feature of an addict's life. Maintaining your habit is so important you've no real interest in anything else.
-- Marian Keyes

#Real #Recovery #Addiction

Besides, I'd seen a really nice pair of shoes yesterday in the mall and I wanted them for my own. I can't describe the feeling of immediate familiarity that rushed between us. The moment I clapped eyes on them I felt like I already owned them. I could only suppose that we were together in a former life. That they were my shoes when I was a serving maid in medieval Britain or when I was a princess in ancient Egypt. Or perhaps they were the princess and I was the shoes. Who's to know? Either way I knew that we were meant to be together.
-- Marian Keyes

#Nice #Princess #Eye

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?
-- Marian Keyes

#Vacation #Mourning #Special

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.
-- Marian Keyes

#Hurt #Moving #People

Minsk! How pissed-off that sounded! It was great. You could scare the bejayzus out of someone if you said it right.
-- Marian Keyes

#Scare #Pissed Off #Said

I rang my mother to thank her for giving birth to me and she said, "What choice had I? You were in there, how else were you going to get out?
-- Marian Keyes

#Mother #Giving #Choices

God! I hated this business of being grown-up. I hated having to make decisions where I didn't know what was behind the door. I wanted a world where heroes and villains were clearly labeled. Where ominous music comes on-screen so you can't possibly mistake him. Where someone asks you to choose between playing with the beautiful princess in the fragrant garden and being eaten by the hideous monster in the foul-smelling pit. Not exactly a difficult one, now is it? Not something that you would agonize over, or that would make you lose a night's sleep?
-- Marian Keyes

#Beautiful #Mistake #Princess

Love is blind, there was no doubt about it. In Tara's case it was also deaf, dumb, dyslexic, had a bad hip and the beginnings of Alzheimer's
-- Marian Keyes

#Love Is #Dumb

Here's how it is: I feel guilty about every single bite of food that goes into my mouth.
-- Marian Keyes

#Mouths #Guilty #Feels

I love Prada. Not so much the clothes, which are for malnourished thirteen-year-olds, but I covet, with covety covetousness, the shoes and handbags. Like, I LOVE them. If I was given a choice between world peace and a Prada handbag, I'd dither. (I'm not proud of this, I'm only saying.)
-- Marian Keyes

#Years #Shoes #Clothes

I've always been melancholic. At a party, everyone would be looking at the glittering chandeliers and I'd be looking at the waitress's cracked shoes.
-- Marian Keyes

#Party #Shoes #Would Be

I'd rather dig a ditch than go to a dinner party with people I don't know.
-- Marian Keyes

#Party #People #Dinner

Love is an emotion. It can't be seen or touched, and it is experienced differently by everyone, therefore it is difficult to measure.
-- Marian Keyes

#Love Is #Emotion #Difficult

I'm proud of what I write and feel endorsed by my readers.
-- Marian Keyes

#Writing #Proud #Feels

I'm quite introverted but I'm not shy.
-- Marian Keyes

#Shy #Introverted

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

#Feel Good #Darkness #Fiction