"When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious."
— Edna O'Brien

"In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things."
— Edna O'Brien

"...people liking you or not liking you is an accident and is to do with them and not you. That goes for love too, only more so."
— Edna O'Brien (Girls in Their Married Bliss)

"Writers are always anxious, always on the run--from the telephone, from responsibilities, from the distractions of the world."
— Edna O'Brien

"I crossed the room, and what you did was to feel my hair over and over again and in different ways, touch it, with the palm of your hand... felt it, strands of hair, with your fingers, touched it as if it were cloth, the way a child touches its favorite surfaces."
— Edna O'Brien

"Life, after all, was a secret with the self. The more one gave out, the less there remained for the center--that center which she coveted for herself and recognized instantly in others. Fruits had it, the very heart of, say, a cherry, where the true worth and flavor lay. Some of course were flawed or hollow in there. Many, in fact. "
— Edna O'Brien (The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue)

"The vote means nothing to women. We should be armed."
— Edna O'Brien