Quotes by John McGahern

John McGahern

…with a rush of feeling he felt that this must be happiness. As soon as the thought came to him, he fought it back, blaming the whiskey. The very idea was as dangerous as presumptive speech: happiness could not be sought or worried into being, or even fully grasped; it should be allowed its own slow pace so that it passes unnoticed, if it ever comes at all.

Feelings

Ideas

Pace

Among its many other obligations, fiction always has to be believable. Life does not have to suffer such constraint, and much of what takes place is believable only because it happens.

Doe

Fiction

Suffering

Amongst Women concentrated on the family, and the new book concentrates on a small community. The dominant units in Irish society are the family and the locality. The idea was that the whole world would grow out from that small space.

Book

Ideas

Space

Anything that is given can be at once taken away. We have to learn never to expect anything, and when it comes it’s no more than a gift on loan.

Given

Loan

Taken

As a writer, I write to see. If I knew how it would end, I wouldn’t write. It’s a process of discovery.

Discovery

Ends

Writing

Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there’s the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity.

Identity

Rain

Sky

I belong to the middle class that grew up very influenced by the Catholic church. The people of the novel are from a more pagan and practical world in which the Christianity is just a veneer.

Catholic

Class

People

I feel I grew up in a different century than I live in. I think most of them are changes for the good.

Different

Grew Up

Thinking

I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.

Church

Gothic

Printed Word

I mean I think that’s a fact and I think that we had a very peculiar type of Catholic Church here in that it was a fortress Church.

Catholic

Mean

Thinking

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Abundance

Advice

Attitude

Australia

Beautiful

Blood

Book

Boys

Building

Calm

Catholic

Century

Charming

Chinese

Church

Class

Differences

Different

Discovery

Distance

Doe

Editors

Eight

Empires

Ends

Father

Feelings

Fiction

Forever

Given

Gothic

Gratitude

Grew Up

Ideas

Identity

Imagination

Ireland And The Irish

Journey

Killing

Kissing

Life Is

Loan

Long

Losing

Matter

Mean

Mother

Needs

Pace

Peculiar

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by John McGahern

John McGahern

Among its many other obligations, fiction always has to be believable. Life does not have to suffer such constraint, and much of what takes place is believable only because it happens.

Amongst Women concentrated on the family, and the new book concentrates on a small community. The dominant units in Irish society are the family and the locality. The idea was that the whole world would grow out from that small space.

Anything that is given can be at once taken away. We have to learn never to expect anything, and when it comes it’s no more than a gift on loan.

As a writer, I write to see. If I knew how it would end, I wouldn’t write. It’s a process of discovery.

Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there’s the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity.

I belong to the middle class that grew up very influenced by the Catholic church. The people of the novel are from a more pagan and practical world in which the Christianity is just a veneer.

I feel I grew up in a different century than I live in. I think most of them are changes for the good.

I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.

I mean I think that’s a fact and I think that we had a very peculiar type of Catholic Church here in that it was a fortress Church.

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Topics by John McGahern

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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