Eggshells Quotes

“I'm uncomfortable with verbs; they expect too much.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“I WANT A friend called Penelope. When I know her well enough, I’ll ask her why she doesn’t rhyme with antelope.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“Summer has landed overnight, and the street is full of arms and legs that are not usually seen; they seem detached from their owners like so many piles of limbs in the death scene of a war film.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“If hobbits live in Middle Earth, then every third person in Middle Third should be a hobbit.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“My ears have been saturated with other people's works recently; today I will hear only my own.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“I walk the shelves, but no book makes me want to stop and pick it up. They're too new and alphabetically ordered and they smell too clean. I need a chaos of books. So I leave the shop, cross the river, and walk along the south keys. I turn onto Parliament Street and go into the second-hand charity bookshop. The books here are different shapes and sizes and feels. They smell of their previous owners in the same way dogs look like their owners or undertakers look like corpses. I buy a large hardback book with watercolor drawings of birds and a softback book about how to get things done. I would like to get things done and ticked off of lists. Some of my projects are endlessly roaming like lemmings without a leader.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“My lone silence has the quality of marshmallows, padded with sugary dough, but other people's silence is punctured with pointy, jagged blades.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“I like that the makers of Arabic didn't insist upon a 'U' after a 'Q': 'Muhaqqaq' looks fearless, undaunted, unencumbered by 'U's.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“Vivian, it's fine. Do you keep a diary?'
'I used to,' I say, 'but it took too long to write everything I thought or saw or did. I couldn't go anywhere without my diary, and my sister got annoyed when I wrote down everything she said. But if I didn't do that, it wasn't a true diary.'
'It's all or nothing with you, isn't it, Vivian?'
I sense she's going to laugh again, so I speak hastily.
'There are boxes of my old diaries in the attic, but they're so tiring to read. It's like reliving a whole part of my old life while living in my current life. And I've forgotten most of what's written, so what's the point of living these details in the first place if I'm not going to remember them?”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“I like living in a city where I am mostly unknown, and going into small places where I am known.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“Two cars are racing through narrow streets lined with stalls. The cars plunge through the stalls, people scatter, tables of fruit and vegetables and meat and fish are knocked and sprawled and squashed and smashed. I want to see the film about the cleanup, the film about the people who are injured by the cars, the film about the people whose livelihoods have been ruined by a man in sunglasses who values his life above all else. I feel like I'm the only person rooting for the fruit seller instead of the hero.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“my old diaries in the attic, but they’re so tiring to read. It’s like reliving a whole part of my old life while living in my current life. And I’ve forgotten most of what’s written, so what’s the point of living these details in the first place if I’m not going to remember them?”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“but I think lunkfast suits this meat-heavy meal better.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“Her world is full of children and doings and action verbs, but I’m uncomfortable with verbs; they expect too much.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“I wonder at the certainty of these women. How did they acquire beliefs so definite that they needed to share them with others in print? The message I like best, the message I write hugely over seven pages in my notebook, the message I want to tattoo, no etch, no brand onto my left arm is next to Louise Loves Conor. It says it's a quote by Francois Rabelais by a John Green. “I go to seek a Great Perhaps." I would like to write this quote all over the city myself, but then I would be ripping off Rabelais, Green, and the toilet scrawler. I close my notebook and open the cubicle door. I could do worse than live by toilet door wisdom.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“I wonder at the certainty of these women. How did they acquire beliefs so definite that they needed to share them with others in print? The message I like best, the message I write hugely over seven pages in my notebook, the message I want to tattoo, no etch, no brand onto my left arm is next to Louise Loves Conor. It says it's a quote by Francois Rabelais by a John Green. “I go to seek a Great Perhaps." I would like to write this quote all over the city myself, but then I would be ripping off Rabelais, Green, and the toilet scrawler. I close my notebook and open the cubicle door. I could do worse than live by toilet wisdom.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“I could do worse than live by toilet door wisdom.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“Her voice sounds like it's under the sea already, and when I look at her face, it's full of bliss and waves.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells