Roddy Doyle Quotations

I see people in terms of dialogue and I believe that people are their talk.

Ulysses could have done with a good editor. You know people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it.

When you are writing for fiction everything is in each word and each individual word is a literary decision, whereas if you are writing for the screen and you have a character walking into a room it is because she walks into the room: it doesn't matter if it isn't glorious literature.

If you're a writer in Dublin and you write a snatch of dialogue, everyone thinks you lifted it from Joyce. The whole idea that he owns language as it is spoken in Dublin is a nonsense. He didn't invent the Dublin accent. It's as if you're encroaching on his area or it's a given that he's on your shoulder. It gets on my nerves.

I wasn't even aware of the Year of the Family. I couldn't give a toss. These things - the year of the family, the year of the three-legged dog. I think it's all trash.

It was a sign of growing up, when the dark made no more difference to you than the day.

Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

If you are a writer you're at home, which means you're out of touch. You have to make excuses to get out there and look at how the world is changing.

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.

When I was growing up, the exam system didn't allow you to write fiction, so you never did.

I've been asked why does Ireland produce so many great musicians, and the answer is it doesn't. When you count the great musicians Ireland has given the world in the last 20 years, you can do it on one hand.

When you grow up on an island, what matters is how you stand to the sea.

Sometimes adults seem as though they have cut a chord from being a child.

She's a pot-of-tea-before-I-say-boo-to-you woman. There's always a pile of warm teabags in the sink when I come down, like what a horse would leave behind.

If you're from Dublin, for example, chances are you live with your family, if you're lucky enough to, right up to the mid-20s. And most of the people I know, when they finally sort of set off on their own, they don't stray all that far.

It's hard for me to measure them, or to assess my books because I'm so close to them.

The problem with being Irish... is having 'Riverdance' on your back. It's a burden at times.

Most working days I can be at my desk for nine hours a day.

I like naming characters.

My parents were sixty years married.

I tend to plan as I write. And I want to leave myself open and the character open to keep on going until it seems to be the time to stop.

I'm going to sound like an old man but at my age, it's lovely doing something that you've never done before.

I don't work to any commissions. I do what I want to do.

The best way to reveal a character is to get them to open their mouths.

She'd tried her hand at most things, but drew the line at honesty.

Dreaming was only nice while it lasted.

Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's part of any endeavour, not just writing.

I do enjoy Gothic fiction or books about zombies if they are well written and I like vampires.

I write short stories when a little idea occurs to me, that I know isn't a part of a novel that will stand by itself and should be concentrated.

I wouldn't go out of my way to experience the indignity of middle-age just because it might be good meat for a story.

To claim that music is more important than oxygen would be trite and sentimental. It would also be true.

Do be kind to yourself. Fill pages as quickly as possible; double space, or write on every second line. Regard every new page as a small triumph, until you get to page 50. Then calm down, and start worrying about the quality. Do feel anxiety - it's the job.

I'm not recognised that much. I'm just a bald man in glasses and there's a rash of them in Dublin. It'd be different if I had a mohican.

The Irish are the niggers of Europe, lads.

When I was a kid, if you didn't speak Irish, you really wanted to. And you played Gaelic games and you didn't pay any attention to what was happening in the outside world, because really, Ireland was the center of the universe. And I don't think that's the case anymore. Although, admittedly, it is the center of the universe.

When I'm writing I just think there's only the page and me and nobody else.

Good ideas are often murdered by better ones.

It's great meeting children because you never know what they will say.

Some of the people who look the most normal are probably the maddest people trying to look normal.

No matter how close to personal experience a story might be, inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and, actually, whether it happened or not becomes irrelevant. It is all about choosing the right words.

It's a big con job. We have sold the myth of Dublin as a sexy place incredibly well; because it is a dreary little dump most of the time.

You know people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it.

If there is a heaven, Jane Austen is sitting in a small room with Mother Teresa and Princess Diana, listening to Duran Duran, forever. If there's a hell, she's standing.