Peter Murphy > Peter's Quotes

“Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The majority of the members of the Irish parliament are professional politicians, in the sense that otherwise they would not be given jobs minding mice at crossroads.”
― Flann O'Brien

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
― Elie Wiesel

“May God forgive you for saying such a thing.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“Another brave new world beckoned, but Dublin was dubious – too often hope had been trampled down by foreign armies or strangled in dark alleys by the shadows of avarice and graft.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“She knew where they were going. She had visited Kilmainham Gaol before, wrapped in its brooding walls lest the ghosts it housed should break free and point accusing fingers at those who used the reins of power to drive the horses of personal ambition. It was a sad place where the residue of human suffering lingered – it had no place else to go.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“His voice evoked the ghosts of those who had paid that price and died horribly. They hovered in the shadows muttering vengeance, but he didn't appear to be affected as he walked and talked. He was at home with the living and the dead.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“It was great spending the nights with him, but sometimes, she needed a little break from him and the her that she became around him.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“I think you should be grateful to the English, they built this country and made it civil.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“We have had a spot of bother. I am afraid that I shot the Bard in the bottom. Good thing that I was over fifty paces away.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“Some good things did come out of France, but the place has become unbearably Gaulish don’t you think?”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“They were still in that forgiving time when even their flaws were quaint.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Shadows gathered as they had done for eons, beneath the moon and the twinkling of a million stars, like a gathering of forgotten deities.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“Horse-Protestant be damned,” Maurice chuckled, “I am as Irish as the rest of you, but I don’t get to blame someone whenever things don’t go my way.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“Women didn't like to face reality, especially his.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“Do you really think that one person can be enough for someone?”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“Yes. I guess it's the foolish romantic in me, but you see, I don’t think that sex is my Muse.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“Gods become myths when people stop believin’ in them.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“Are you sayin' it's okay to throw yourself at someone for the sake of art but it's not okay to go around bein' nice?”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“Words that had looked so strong on the page, which ran through his mind like music, now shriveled in the air around him.”
― Peter Murphy, Lagan Love

“For I must tell you that we artists cannot tread the path of Beauty without Eros keeping company with us and appointing himself as our guide.”
― Thomas Mann

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
― Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades

“You mean that because I have no name I cannot die and that you cannot be held answerable for death even if you kill me?"

"That is about the size of it," said the Sergeant.

I felt so sad and so entirely disappointed that tears came into my eyes and a lump of incommunicable poignancy swelled tragically in my throat. I began to feel intensely every fragment of my equal humanity. The life that was bubbling at the end of my fingers was real and nearly painful in intensity and so was the beauty of my warm face and the loose humanity of my limbs and the racy health of my red rich blood. To leave it all without good reason and to smash the little empire into small fragments was a thing too pitiful even to refuse to think about.”
― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

“Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.”
― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman