Quote

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.

Roddy Doyle

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Roddy Doyle
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: May 8
Lecturer
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
Ruaidhrí Ó Dúill
Ruaidhri O Duill
Experience
Close
Stories
Personal
Part
Becomes
Might
Happened
Matter
Story
Right
Actually
Inevitably
Going
Whether
Irrelevant
Words
Choosing

More quotes by Roddy Doyle

Image
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, the - 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.
Roddy Doyle
Image
I like naming characters.
Roddy Doyle
Image
When I was growing up, the exam system didn't allow you to write fiction, so you never did.
Roddy Doyle
Image
When you grow up on an island, what matters is how you stand to the sea.
Roddy Doyle
Image
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.
Roddy Doyle
Image
The problem with being Irish... is having 'Riverdance' on your back. It's a burden at times.
Roddy Doyle
Image
My parents were sixty years married.
Roddy Doyle
Image
Sometimes adults seem as though they have cut a chord from being a child.
Roddy Doyle
Image
She'd tried her hand at most things, but drew the line at honesty.
Roddy Doyle
Image
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.
Roddy Doyle
Image
Some of the people who look the most normal are probably the maddest people trying to look normal.
Roddy Doyle
Image
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.
Roddy Doyle
Image
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.
Roddy Doyle
Image
The Irish are the niggers of Europe, lads.
Roddy Doyle
Image
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.
Roddy Doyle
Image
My novels come from within me they are things I feel I want to do.
Roddy Doyle
Image
Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's part of any endeavour, not just writing.
Roddy Doyle
Image
I see people in terms of dialogue and I believe that people are their talk.
Roddy Doyle
Image
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.
Roddy Doyle
Image
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.
Roddy Doyle