J.P. Donleavy Quotes

At the age of 18 I don't think that I thought very differently than I did at the age of 25. I think we instinctively have the knowledge and adapt the knowledge we need.

Ginny Cupper took me in her car out to the spread fields of Indiana. Parking near the edge of woods and walking out into the sunny rows of corn, waving seeds to a yellow horizon. She wore a white blouse and a gray patch of sweat under her arms and the shadow of her nipples was gray. We were rich. So rich we could never die. Ginny laughed and laughed, white saliva on her teeth lighting up the deep red of her mouth, fed the finest food in the world. Ginny was afraid of nothing. She was young and old. Her brown arms and legs swinging in wild optimism, beautiful in all their parts. She danced on the long hood of her crimson Cadillac, and watching her, I thought that God must be female. She leaped into my arms and knocked me to the ground and screamed into my mouth.

Electronic books are a bad thing because they cannot be accumulated on shelves to remind you of your past, to impress your neighbors and colleagues, and to help prevent divorces thanks to the sheer bother of arguing over who owns what.

I wish I were a Russian. It's so exciting.

She thought too that women didn't know what to do with themselves these days which could turn them into harridans. Hardly a female friend she knew wasn't miserable. Either mind dumb with children, or in the married condition married to an earnest toiler, or lonely unmarried in their successful career.

And Mary, what of other men? There are no other men because my heart has gone out to you. And if you don't laugh I'll tell you what i think. I won't laugh. I think it's a fine instrument that God made for the poor likes of us to enjoy.

To marry the Irish is to look for poverty.

How when one is able to indulge the luxury of beginning one's life again.
All one thinks
To do
Is end it

I'm starved for love. Not ordinary love but real love. The love that's like music or something.

Revenge is what I want. Nothing but pure unadulterated revenge. But my mother brought me up to be a lady.

Rid the mind of knowledge when looking for pleasure. Or start thinking and find a lot of pain.

Sometimes you write and you find yourself almost wondering how it will turn out. I don't think every writer sort of almost admits that at some stage his books can take on their own kind of life it selves and simply lead away into directions that they're not kind of prepared for.

If you're going to love somebody, love somebody who needs it.

This Boston voice squeaking out its song. The yellow light goes out the window on the stubs of windy grass and black rocks. And down the wet steps by gorse stumps and rusty heather to the high water mark and diving pool. Where the seaweeds rise and fall at night in Balscaddoon Bay.

Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.

And no. I must not go on thinking. For the pain will never go away. You just go on and live. In the dust of desertion. Still falling where last I loved.

Writing is turning life's worst moments into money.

The sun of Sunday morning up out of the sleepless sea from black Liverpool. Sitting on the rocks over the water with a jug of coffee. Down there along the harbor pier, trippers in bright colors. Sails moving out to sea. Young couples climbing the Balscaddoon Road to the top of Kilrock to search out grass and lie between the furze. A cold green sea breaking whitely along the granite coast. A day on which all things are born, like uncovered stars.

The purpose of writing is to make your mother and father drop dead with shame.

When I'm dead, I hope it may be said: his sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

Food Throwers: Begun usually by estranged couples, once this victual flinging starts, everyone will do it ... Should your dinner party have become an out of control concussion match with opponents catapulting croutons and petits pois across the mahogany, don't fight it, go with it. And when you have the desire to quell the uprising approach the original perpetrator from behind. There, slowly crown her with the contents of the fresh fruit salad bowl. But be warned. Although this immobilizes and rivits everyone's attention it also gives them new ideas.

Expect the worst
And that's what
You'll get
Only it will be
Much worse.

I'm all for Christianity, but insolence must be put down.

I'm sick of people. The less I have to do with them for the rest of my life the better. I don't careif I die.

On Being Old. It's not nice but take comfort that you won't stay that way for ever.