Dublin Quotes

Greta Wickham. He used to say if only Nora and Greta were here now, we wouldn't be in this mess, even when there was no mess at all." "Oh, he talked very warmly about you," Peggy interjected, "and William Junior and Thomas had nothing but good words to say about Maurice Webster when he was teaching them. I remember one day Thomas had a temperature and we all wanted him to stay in bed and he wouldn't, oh no he wouldn't, because he had a double commerce class with Mr. Webster that he could not miss. You know they wanted Thomas to stay in Dublin when he qualified. Oh, he got offers with very good prospects! We told him he should consider ~ Colm Toibin

Top of the Shitberg
The first small turds that come out of you after getting stuffed on Indian or Mexican food.
You're thinking, 'Is that it?' and a minute later the Mt. Everest of shit comes out of your ass - requiring two courtesy flushes followed by a plunger.

Alternate meaning: A popular greeting among Jews living in Edwardian Dublin, when they met an the synagogue for morning services ~
'Top of the shitberg to you, Seamus Goldberg.'
'And a top of the shitberg to you, Leopold Bloom. ~ Beryl Dov

I don't think America has ever had a center the way London is the center of England or Dublin is the center of Ireland. ~ Richard Russo

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, on the 15th October, 1856, so that he is now about twenty-six years of age, but brief as has been his career, it has been full of promise for the future. The son of highly intellectual parents, he has had an exceptional education, has travelled much in wild and remote, through classic lands, and in the course of these journeys has learnt to appreciate the beauties of the old authors, in whose works whilst at college he attained exceptional proficiency. But his naturally enthusiastic temperament teaches him to hope for better in the future than has been achieved in the past, and to see how vast will be the influence of Art and Literature on the coming democracy of Intellect, when education and culture shall have taught men to pride themselves on what they have done, and not alone on the deeds of their ancestors. ~ Walter Hamilton

In the midst of a hive of customers and clerks, a small boy with blond hair neatly parted on one side stares up into the face of a bronze sculpture. It is Cuchulainn himself---the warrior light. The Hound of Coolan lashed to a boulder with spear drawn. But The Hound is leaning to one side and dying in a public hall of the Dublin Post Office. ~ Laura Treacy Bentley

Dublin was turning into Disneyland with super-pubs, a Purgatory open till five in the morning. ~ Joseph O'Connor

Let's start the next chapter, baby. ~ Samantha Young

You are a fucking hoot, Fred. I'm officially making you my new best friend. It's quite an honoured and sought after position, I'll have you know. So far I have a grand total of four friends in Dublin. You've currently just snagged yourself the top spot."
"Oh stop, Viv, I'm welling up, here," I reply drily. ~ L. H. Cosway

I am at home in Dublin, more than in any other city. ~ Louis MacNeice

I think that I must be the only person who left California and headed to Dublin in pursuit of a career in film. The arrow is pointing in the other direction in most people's minds. ~ Lenny Abrahamson

We've done shows - we'll be in Dublin, and it will be nonstop pandemonium to the point where you think the crowd is going to implode, because they're making so much noise and they're so excited. ~ Lupe Fiasco

If Blake said that, said Father Brian, he never lived in Dublin. ~ Ray Bradbury

You say fate is almost indispensable to literature - I think it's completely indispensable, at least in a novel, because a novel always has a plot. Even if nothing happens, even if someone just spends a day walking around Dublin, or whatever, there's still something going on. ~ Daniel Kehlmann

One of the reasons I got into this game was because I wanted to learn how to get myself comfortable in uncomfortable situations. I grew up in a tough area of Dublin, and fighting was just part of your life. Boys fight, and I won some, but I lost a lot too, and I didn't like that, I didn't like that feeling of not knowing whether I was in danger, in trouble. ~ Conor McGregor

A lot of Polish and Russian Jews had this experience: they would emigrate, thinking they were on their way to New York. Then their captains would stop in Dublin and say, 'Everybody off.' They would leave, and by the time they discovered they weren't in America, they didn't have enough money to continue. ~ Rosemary Mahoney

There's a ruthlessness to the city now that wasn't there before. I was in Dublin a few months ago, when we were shooting Breakfast on Pluto, and if I saw one kid throwing up on the street, I must have seen a hundred of them. ~ Liam Neeson

For a startling period of my life, I reported the Troubles in Ireland for the BBC. I lived in Dublin and was called out to all sorts of incidents that, if taken together, add up to a war - bombings, assassinations, riots, shootings, robberies, jailbreaks, kidnappings, and sieges. ~ Frank Delaney

I'm crazy about Dublin. If you went back 3,000 years in my ancestry you wouldn't find a drop of Irish blood in the veins, but I love the place. ~ Harold Prince

There are more balls in twenty feet of street here then there are in all of Dublin, and I'm proud to be swaying in the nut sack. ~ Karen Marie Moning

60 advocates of unorthodox therapies whose credentials are given in the ACS book (above).( Of these 60, thirty-nine or almost two-thirds, hold ... medical degrees from such universities as Harvard, Illinois, Northwestern, Yale, Dublin, Oxford, or Toronto. Two are osteopaths. 3 ... also hold ... (PhD's) ... scientific ... reputable ... 8 others received PhD's in such fields as chemistry, physiology, bacteriology, parasitology, or medical physics, from ... Yale, Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley, Columbia, and NYU. Thus over 75% ... are medical doctors or doctors of philosophy in scientific areas. ~ Ralph W. Moss

She's definitely a romance writer. I've primed her to be a romance writer, subjecting her to so many romantic dramas it would be a miracle if she didn't become a romance writer. ~ Samantha Young

RyanAir have been getting a hard time because they've launched a £7 flight to New York. Although as always with RyanAir it does land slightly outside of New York. In Dublin. ~ Frankie Boyle

The secret of my success is my mother, who was from Dublin. All my relations are in Dublin or in the west, or as I found out, we went to Rostrevor in Northern Ireland to film and I got out, while they changed cars around, and this man said to me: "You know you have cousins in this town? And they're coming down to see you ... " And so they did. I'm sorry we didn't go to a lot more places, so that I could find a lot more cousins. So, that was good. It's entirely because my father was also brought up in Dublin. So, that's my link. ~ Judi Dench

The first play I wrote was called 'Twenty-five.' It was played by our company in Dublin and London, and was adapted and translated into Irish and played in America. ~ Lady Gregory

I'm pleased to say I grew up in a happy family in Dublin. I feel we're very close. ~ Domhnall Gleeson

I was court-martialed in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence. ~ Thomas Hardy

But this was Dublin, the nation's capital. The place of my birth and a city I loved at the heart of a country I loathed. A town filled with good-hearted innocents, miserable bigots, adulterous husbands, conniving churchmen, paupers who received no help from the State, and millionaires who sucked the lifeblood from it. ~ John Boyne

After high school, I went to Stanford University and majored in English. Of course, that gave me a chance to do lots more reading and writing. I also received degrees in London and Dublin - where I moved to be near a charming Irishman who became my husband! ~ Linda Sue Park

I tutted. "That's cold, Nate."
"Hey - " He pointed his finger at me.
"I'm not a complete shit. I realized later that night that it was a stupid bloody idea and I felt awful."
"Felt awful?" Nathan harrumphed.
"You cried your eyes out." I pinched my lips together to keep from laughing. Nate scowled.
"Manly tears. Manly tears of regret."
Young, Samantha (2014-01-07). Before Jamaica Lane (On Dublin Street Book 3) (Kindle Locations 2913-2916). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ~ Samantha Young

The physician had asked the patient to read aloud a paragraph from the statutes of Trinity College, Dublin. 'It shall be in the power of the College to examine or not examine every Licentiate, previous to his admission to a fellowship, as they shall think fit.' What the patient actually read was: 'An the bee-what in the tee-mother of the trothodoodoo, to majoram or that emidrate, eni eni krastei, mestreit to ketra totombreidei, to ra from treido a that kekritest.' Marvellous! Philip said to himself as he copied down the last word. What style! What majestic beauty! The richness and sonority of the opening phrase! 'An the bee-what in the tee-mother of the trothodoodoo.' He repeated it to himself. 'I shall print it on the title page of my next novel,' he wrote in his notebook. ~ Aldous Huxley

It's still possible to find pockets of old Dublin - but its becoming more and more rarified. ~ Anjelica Huston

I am more of an ambler. I once overheard my old boss in Dublin describe me as very "hello trees, hello flowers." It was intended as an insult and it fulfilled its brief; I was insulted. I had little interest in greeting trees and flowers but nor did I treat life as a treadmill, on which it was vital to keep fleeing forward in order to avoid being sucked off the back and out of the game. ~ Marian Keyes

I've played Beckett. I put on in the 1950s the first Australian production of 'Waiting for Godot.' I played Estragon. The most interesting conversation I've had about Beckett was with a Dublin taxi driver. ~ Barry Humphries

When I was 18, I left Dublin and moved to Paris. I didn't speak French. I didn't know anyone. I felt like a fish out of water. ~ Caitriona Balfe

England was never my home. I had a home there but Dublin is my home so leaving Ireland was the hardest thing I had to do. ~ Kevin Kilbane

New York and Dublin are now suburbs of each other. ~ Pete Hamill

The original Guinness Brewery in Dublin has a 9,000-year lease on its property at a perpetual rate of 45 pounds per year--one of the best bargains in Irish commercial history! ~ Rashers Tierney

My first song was about the smog over Dublin in the 1980s, so yeah, I suppose I was always socially conscious. My first song was not a love song, it was about smog. ~ Damien Dempsey

I sure love Ireland. The first trip I ever made was last year when I did this record in Dublin. ~ Michael W. Smith

Dublin ... is not only the capital of a nation, but the capital of an idea. The idea of Irishness is not universally beloved. Some people mock it, some hate it, some fear it. On the whole, though, I think it fair to say, the world interprets it chiefly as a particular kind of happiness, a happiness sometimes boozy and violent, but essentially innocent: and this ineradicable spirit of merriment informs the Dublin genius to this day ... ~ Jan Morris

For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water conservationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights end and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmilk teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture. If the Chicano intellectuals wish to re-cut my "Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" so it shapes "Zoot," may the belt unravel and the pants fall. ~ Ray Bradbury

I live in Dublin, God knows why. There are greatly more congenial places I could have settled in - Italy, France, Manhattan - but I like the climate here, and Irish light seems to be essential for me and for my writing. ~ John Banville

Turn back time to half-past innocence. But that clock's lying on its side, hour hand spinning wildly, in a dirty Dublin alley near a gold makeup pouch half concealed by trash, and an address carved in stone by a dying woman. Broken. ~ Karen Marie Moning

250,000 people turned up in Dublin to cheer me on an open-topped bus along O'Connell St after my world title winning fight in 1985. I'll never forget the sea of smiling faces that greeted me that day. ~ Barry McGuigan

Storytelling is the art of weaving ordinary words into extraordinary worlds. ~ Jack Dublin

I like what Barcelona is doing. This city almost perfectly combines its natural advantages with cultural attractions, IT parks and first-rate educational opportunities. The same applies for Dublin, which manages to achieve a blend of complexity, tolerance and artistry and makes a point of not devoting every part of the city to the tourism industry. Sometimes creativity also means forgoing short-term profits and simply saying no. ~ Charles Landry

I loved the energy of Dublin and the fact that it's so close to the sea, with beauty spots such as Howth so close to hand. ~ Honeysuckle Weeks

I've only been to Dublin once, and I had a great time. I got completely soaked because it was rainy. ~ Jodie Foster

Sandro's holding is face. You can tell from that it's a knee injury. ~ Dion Dublin

I suspect that the only thing that will take Articles Two and Three out of the Irish Constitution is when the bombs begin to blow in Dublin in the way that they have been in Belfast and in London. ~ Norman Tebbit

It's the song of a man trying to forget a woman, but then he realizes it's impossible, that not being with her is harmful and he dies of despair, not knowing whether she still wants to be with him. ~ Amanda Laneley

My mother hoped I would meet a nice doctor or barrister or accountant who would marry me and take me to live in what is now called Fashionable Dublin Four. But she felt that this was a vain hope. I was a bit loud to make a nice professional wife, and anyway, I was too keen on spending my holidays in far flung places to meet any of these people. ~ Maeve Binchy

As a kid growing up in the back streets of Dublin I used to pretend I was playing in the World Cup with my mates out on the streets, and now I will be doing it for real. ~ Robbie Keane

It is ridiculous to believe that Greece might be taking in one million migrants, registering them, then giving refuge to those who have a right to asylum and sending everyone back that does not. Greece is not doing that. We can blame the Greeks for that, but at the same time we should change the Dublin Regulation. When we insist on this unrealistic procedure, it means nothing more than that we are defending Dublin while renouncing Schengen. ~ Paolo Gentiloni

Our eyes collided as heat rushed up my arm. The tingling between my legs intensified, the need in my gut moaned with want. All I could see was Braden, all I could smell was Braden, and his body was so close I imagined I could almost feel all of his hard strength pressing against me. Right then I wanted nothing more than to pull him into the ladies restroom and let him screw me hard against the wall. ~ Samantha Young

My dad moved to London in his early 20s and didn't really go back. So the irony is I've spent lots and lots of time in Ireland, but not with my dad. I've shot films in Belfast, where he's from. And I've shot in Dun Laoghaire. Which is great. And I've shot in Dublin. ~ Imogen Poots

My family, although they're very large on both my parents' sides, they don't know much about their family tree. Occasionally, they try to dig, but they can't get very far, and it's baffling. In Dublin, it seems that so many public records were wiped out; it's proven to be very difficult, so I know very little. ~ Morrissey

I tried to read The Dubliners, when I went to Dublin a couple of years ago. I think I only go thurogh the first story. Gnomon is such an interesting word. So many different uses for a word nooone has heard of, or uses these days. I googled some pictures of sundials to check that it was the tall shadow casting bit (it is) and then discovered that Saint Sulpice in Paris has a rather fascinating large gnomon- which I shall endeavour to see on my next visit to that fair city. Thanks for such a great word, which I shall try to remember. ~ Brian D. McLaren

When I went to the all-Ireland final - Kerry against Dublin - I couldn't get away for an hour and a half with people coming up and wishing me all the best. Not one of them said, 'Martin, when did you leave the IRA?' But every one of them knew I was in the IRA at one stage. ~ Martin McGuinness

She wasn't sure she could ever forget him. ~ Amanda Laneley

He'd score more goals if he was a better finisher. ~ Dion Dublin

Before we kill Schengen, we have to make Dublin work. ~ Mark Rutte

Sometime later, I stood watching the cold rain fall, when suddenly I felt Daemon's arms around me and his lips on my neck. He loved my pregnant body and his hands roamed over it under the warm terrycloth of my bathrobe. I was lost in the moment, content to stay here forever ... lost in the cold rain and welcoming warmth of Dublin, and lost in the arms of my husband. Since we arrived early this morning we were in our room, making love and sleeping, lost in a fairy tale moment, savoring every caress. ~ Rebecca Boucher

When the Dublin-born Beckett was asked by a Parisian journalist whether he was English, he replied, 'On the contrary. ~ Terry Eagleton

Old Dublin City there is no doubtin'
Bates every city upon the say.
'Tis there you'd hear O'Connell spoutin'
And Lady Morgan making tay.
For 'tis the capital of the finest nation,
With charmin' pisintry upon a fruitful sod,
Fightin' like devils for conciliation,
And hatin' each other for the Love of God. ~ Charles Lever

I was happy in Dublin because it is very cosmopolitan. ~ Rick Allen

When I die Dublin will be written in my heart. ~ James Joyce

When I die, Dublin will be written on my heart. ~ James Joyce

I left the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin in 2004, and I did five years of theater after that. ~ Aidan Turner

What's fascinating is where they come from in the world. People in Bangladesh, a chap in a fire-base in Tikrit in Iraq. Chap in an Irish pub in Dublin. And lovely to think this literary network - or rather network of readers - is well spread out. ~ John Gimlette

If you're from Dublin, for example, chances are you live with your family, if you're lucky enough to, right up to the mid-20s. And most of the people I know, when they finally sort of set off on their own, they don't stray all that far. ~ Roddy Doyle

Aston Villa have literally metaphorically had their pants pulled down ~ Dion Dublin

Well, playing a guy who writes songs and busks on Grafton Street in Dublin and falls in love with Marketa Irglova wasn't very difficult for me. There was very little acting going on. ~ Glen Hansard

The Good Friday Agreement and the basic rights and entitlements of citizens that are enshrined within it must be defended and actively promoted by London and Dublin. ~ Gerry Adams

Dublin university contains the cream of Ireland: Rich and thick. ~ Samuel Beckett

You came to Dublin, avenging angel, and what's the first thing you did? Fucked the devil. Oops, shit, eh? ~ Karen Marie Moning

Welcome to the O2. A unique building in Dublin, in that it is actually finished. ~ Bill Bailey

We were playing a festival in Dublin the other week. There was this other group, like, warming up in the next sort of chalet, and they were terrible. I said, 'Shut them cunts up!' And they were still warming up, so I threw a bottle at them. The bands said, 'That's the Sons of Mumford' or something. 'They're number five in charts!' I just thought they were a load of retarded Irish folk singers. ~ Mark E. Smith

There is another aspect of the marriage question to which Plato is a stranger. All the children born in his state are foundlings. It never occurred to him that the greater part of them, according to universal experience, would have perished. For children can only be brought up in families. There is a subtle sympathy between the mother and the child which cannot be supplied by other mothers, or by 'strong nurses one or more' (Laws). If Plato's 'pen' was as fatal as the Creches of Paris, or the foundling hospital of Dublin, more than nine-tenths of his children would have perished. There would have been no need to expose or put out of the way the weaklier children, for they would have died of themselves. ~ Plato

I always went to Ireland as a child. I remember trips to Dundalk, Wexford, Cork and Dublin. My gran was born in Dublin, and we had a lot of Irish friends, so we'd stay on their farms and go fishing. They were fantastic holidays - being outdoors all day and coming home to a really warm welcome in the evenings. ~ Vinnie Jones

I gulped inwardly. Outwardly, I tilted my head to the side with a wry grin. "You're good with the words, I'll give you that."
"I'm good with my hands. Will you let me give you that?"
Young, Samantha (2012-10-12). On Dublin Street (Kindle Locations 1917-1919). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition. ~ Samantha Young

when you find that special person, you want to be the best version of yourself. You want to demonstrate that you're willing to change and to overcome your fears. ~ Amanda Laneley

I've lived in other cities - Rome, Dublin, Mexico City - but I was born in New York City, and I always lived in those other places as a New Yorker. ~ Pete Hamill

Good Lord, just look at that six pack!" She sighed. "I think you could grate cheese there."

"Fran, if you were with Daniel Craig with no shirt, I think the last thing you would think about would be grating cheese. ~ Amanda Laneley

Barrons' lips twitched. I'd almost made him smile. Barrons smiles about as often as the sun comes out in Dublin, and it has the same effect on me; makes me feel warm and stupid. ~ Karen Marie Moning

This tired abstract anger; inarticulate passive opposition; always the same thing in dublin ~ Samuel Beckett

All I can do now is carry on with my life. ~ Amanda Laneley

The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in Lonesome Dove and had nightmares about slavery in Beloved and walked the streets of Dublin in Ulysses and made up a hundred stories in The Arabian Nights and saw my mother killed by a baseball in A Prayer for Owen Meany. I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career ~ Pat Conroy

After I graduated from college, while traveling around Europe, hitchhiking, doing the tourist thing, I went into a church in Dublin. ~ Frederica Mathewes-Green

My city. I pondered that phrase, wondered why Barrons felt that way. He never said "our world." He always said "your world." But he called Dublin his city. Merely because he'd been in it so long? Or had Barrons, like me, been beguiled by her tawdry grace, fallen for her charm and colorful dualities?
I looked around "my" bookstore. That was what I called it. Did we call the things of our heart our own, whether they were or not? ~ Karen Marie Moning

I stay back, because if i get close I'll have to roll him over and look in his eyes, and what if they're empty like Alina's were ? Then I'll know he's gone, like I knew she was gone, too far beyond my reach to ever hear my voice again, to hear me say, I'm sorry, Alina. I wish I'd called more often; I wish I'd heard the truth beneath our vapid sister talk; I wish I'd come to Dublin and fought beside you, or raged at you, because you were acting from fear, too, Alina, not hope at all, or you would have trusted me to help you. Or maybe just apologize, Barrons, for being too young to have my priorities reffined, like you, because I haven't suffered whatever the hell it is you suffered, and then shove you up against a wall and kiss you until you can't breathe, do what I wanted to do the first day I saw you there in your bloody damned bookstore. Disturb you like you disturbed me, make you see me, make you want me-pink me!-shatter your self-control, bring you crashing to your knees in front of me, even though I told myself I'd never want a man like you, that you were too old, too carnal, more animal than man, with one foot in the swamp and no desire to come all the way out, when the truth was that I was terrified by what you made me feel. ~ Karen Marie Moning

It's not easy making a living as a writer, and for many years I worked at a Waterstones in Dublin. It was a good environment for an aspiring writer, with lots of events and authors appearing. ~ John Boyne

The thought of hurting him ripped me apart. Ripped me so totally, that I knew, I cared more for him than I did myself. ~ Samantha Young

Cadiz is a city of magic, like Cracow or Dublin, to set the mind on fire at a turn of a corner ... The eye is continually fed, the imagination stirred, by a train of spectacles as charming as if they had been contrived. ~ Honor Tracy

When I come home, I say I'm coming home to Dublin. When I'm in Dublin, I say I'm going home to New York. I'm sort of a man of two countries. ~ Colum McCann

Night fell clean and cold in Dublin, and wind moaned beyond my room as if a million pipes played the air. ~ Patricia Cornwell

Dublin was an English city, one of the loveliest. The most Irish thing about it was the shifting drab flow of the poor people ~ Jan Morris

Come on guys," Ellie called to us from further up the sidewalk. Elodie, Clark and the kids must have already gone inside. "What's taking so long?"
"Jocelyn was just begging for sex, but I told her it was a highly inappropriate time for it," Braden answered loudly, causing passersby to chuckle at him.
Young, Samantha (2012-10-12). On Dublin Street (Kindle Locations 3707-3709). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition. ~ Samantha Young

Marooned by all but one of his new disciples, the busker complete his act unfazed. The perfumed air seems to be replaced by a faint electrical smell like ozone after a lightning strike. When the man becomes a sterling tableau in the setting sun, Leah stares into his unblinking moonstone eye. ~ Laura Treacy Bentley

In a move that will remain in Irish annals as a stigma comparable to the potato famine, the Dublin government succumbed to ECB blackmail: make the German creditors of Ireland's commercial banks whole, even a bank that was closed down and thus no longer systemically important for Ireland's financial sector, or else. ~ Yanis Varoufakis