We asked our friends and relations to lend us their children, and, because we lived in London, children loved to come and stay for their half-term holidays.
— Maeve Binchy
Nobody ever wins by the cavalry coming to rescue you. It isn't a question of you're happy if you get married, or you get thin, or you get rich, because I've known lots of thin, rich, married people who are absolutely miserable.
I didn't have a sweet tooth, but I liked butter, and I liked sauces, and I liked wine... and curry... and cheeses.
I've had a good life, full of more success and happiness than I ever expected.
I once tried to write a novel about revenge. It's the only book I didn't finish. I couldn't get into the mind of the person who was plotting vengeance.
My father went to work by train every day. It was half an hour's journey each way, and he would read a paperback in four journeys. After supper, we all sat down to read - it was long before TV, remember!
Growing up in Ireland, there never seemed to be the notion that children should be seen and not heard. We all looked forward to mealtimes when we'd sit around the table and talk about our days. Storytelling and long, rambling conversations were considered good things.
When I was being brought up, we weren't allowed to wallow in self-pity, which was a thoroughly good thing. We were all fine and healthy because that was what we were told to be.
I've seen a lot of people buy my books and then fall asleep on the plane soon afterwards.
If you're going on a plane journey, you're more likely to take one of my stories than 'Finnegan's Wake.'
I wore miniskirts in the days when no fat girls should have, and with total delight.
I'm pleased to have outsold great writers. But I'm not insane - I realize I am a writer people buy to take on vacation.
I've been very lucky and I have a happy old age with good family and friends still around.
Always write as if you are talking to someone. It works. Don't put on any fancy phrases or accents or things you wouldn't say in real life.
All I ever wanted to do is to write stories that people will enjoy and feel at home with.
I was very pleased, obviously, to have outsold such great writers. But I'm not insane - I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation.
In my stories, whenever there's somebody wonderful and charming and bright and intelligent, that's me!
We have to make our own happiness, and we have to make our own decisions and play the hand that is dealt to us.
I remember watching myself on video and being so disappointed with myself because I was constantly moving around the place and laughing. I thought, 'I must be so much louder than I think I am. From inside it feels fine.'
If I see Marian Keyes' books or Patricia Scanlan's books given more prominence than mine in the bookstore, I'll move mine to the front. I've told them I do this, and they've confessed to doing the same thing to me.
I was just lucky I lived in this time of mass-market paperbacks.
When my sister Joan arrived, I asked if I could swap her for a rabbit. When I think what a marvellous friend she's been, I'm so glad my parents didn't take me at my word.
My family life reads a bit like 'Little House on the Prairie.' I was big sister to Joan, Renee, and brother William, and we grew up in Dalkey, a little town 10 miles outside of Dublin. It was a secure, safe and happy childhood, which was meant to be a disadvantage when it comes to writing stories about family dramas.
My mother was a trained nurse, and she'd tell me that patients would fight as they were administered anaesthetic, grappling to get the gas mask off their face.
I'm mainly an airport author, and if you're trying to take your mind off the journey, you're not going to read 'King Lear.'
That's the kind of motif I bring to the books - that people take charge of their own lives.
I was fat, and that was awful because when you're young and sensitive, you think the world is over because you're fat.
Everybody is a hero in their own story if you just look.
If you woke up each morning, and immediately dwelt on your ills, what sort of a day could you look forward to?
An English journalist called Michael Viney told me when I was 25, that I would write well if I cared a lot what I was writing about. That worked. I went home that day and wrote about parents not understanding their children as well as we teachers did, and it was published the very next week.
I had a very happy childhood, which is unsuitable if you're going to be an Irish writer.
Happiness is in our own hearts. I have no regrets of anything in the past. I'm totally cheerful and happy, and I think that a lot of your attitude is not in the circumstances you find yourself in, but in the circumstances you make for yourself.
In my books, there is no 'ugly duckling turning into a beautiful swan' syndrome because if you look at the Hansel and Gretel syndrome, it was a mistake. It wasn't a duckling, it was a cygnet, and that's why it turned into a swan. The duckling should with any luck turn into a nice clucking duck and get on with its life. Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!
I think I'm brave because I've made decisions based - I hope not entirely selfishly - on what I think is right for me to do next.
Success is not like a cake that needs to be divided. It's more like a heap of stones - a cairn. If someone is successful, they add a stone to the cairn. It gets very high and can be seen from all over the world. That's how I see it.
I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation. I'm an escapist kind of writer.
On the first day of school, my father told me I'd be the most popular girl and everyone would love me and want to be my friend. It wasn't so, but it gave me an enormous amount of confidence.
I'm particularly fond of boned chicken breasts with a little garlic under the flesh and cooked in a casserole for 40 minutes with a jar of olives, some cherry tomatoes and a spoonful of olive oil.
When I was teaching Latin in girls' schools before I became a writer, I didn't much like it if parents would come in and say, 'We'll have less of the Ovid and Virgil and more of the grammar, please.' After all, I was the one in charge. That's how I feel about doctors. You should trust them to do their job properly.
There are no makeovers in my books. The ugly duckling does not become a beautiful swan. She becomes a confident duck able to take charge of her own life and problems.
I think you've got to play the hand that you're dealt and stop wishing for another hand.
I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turn into confident ducks.
We're nothing if we're not loved. When you meet somebody who is more important to you than yourself, that has to be the most important thing.
Because I saw my parents relaxing in armchairs and reading and liking it, I thought it was a peaceful grown-up thing to do, and I still think that.
I never wanted to write. I just wrote letters home from a kibbutz in Israel to reassure my parents that I was still alive and well fed and having a great time. They thought these letters were brilliant and sent them to a newspaper. So I became a writer by accident.
I'm an escapist kind of writer.
