Edna O'Brien

I have some women friends but I prefer men. Don't trust women. There is a built-in competition between women. ”

In every question and every remark tossed back and forth between lovers who have not played out the last fugue, there is one question and it is this: 'Is there someone new?' ”

I'm an Irish Catholic and I have a long iceberg of guilt. ”

Writers really live in the mind and in hotels of the soul. ”

I am obsessive, also I am industrious. Besides, the time when you are most alive and most aware is in childhood and one is trying to recapture that heightened awareness. ”

Countries are either mothers or fathers, and engender the emotional bristle secretly reserved for either sire. ”

My hand does the work and I don't have to think; in fact, were I to think, it would stop the flow. It's like a dam in the brain that bursts. ”