Edna O'Brien Quotes

...five minutes from now, when everything else had dropped away and I realized the full impact of what I’d done, I’d feel my heart breaking.

I felt a splinter of guilt wedge into my heart. Charlotte had hurt me; in return, I'd hurt Rob. Maybe that's what we do to the people we love: take shots in the dark and realize too late we've wounded the people we're trying to protect.

Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will die of a broken heart, and then he will be sorry for what he has done.

The woman I loved died because I did not love her enough - what greater sin is there than that?" (Uncle Chaim and Aunt Fifke and the Angel)

She is sadder and sadder, and for a man there is no balm more soothing than the sadness he has caused a woman.

My mom can't defend herself to the world. She is such an amazing woman, with such an open heart. It's a real hard line, and I crossed it. I took everyone's life story and assumed it would be a great thing to put on screen. I was being selfish and I feel so horrible about it. I feel so guilty.

I never knowingly wanted to hurt anybody.

Turning back the pages of my sweet shattered dream, I wonder if she'll ever do the same; And the thing that I call living is just being satisfied With knowing I've got no one left to blame.

I regret so much. I've made mistakes. I've hurt people. I've done things I'm not proud of. But on the other hand, that way lies madness, you know?

It was never my intention to hurt people's feelings.

I usually do drive-by insults, and keep moving until I realize the next day how horrible I am.

If you have ever clothed another with woe, as with a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you had not done that thing.

We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are.

The nightingales are sobbing in The orchards of our mothers, And hearts that we broke long ago Have long been breaking others; Tears are round, the sea is deep: Roll them overboard and sleep.

Of her scorn the maid repented, And the shepherd - of his love.

Even as the words came out of my mouth, my heart was dying a million deaths.

Don't you dare weep," he commanded. "You've broken my heart." "I 'll fix it later.

How awful is that hour when con, science stings.

And when love is over when the diner of love seems closed from the outside you want all those hours back along with anything you left at the lover’s house and maybe a couple of things which aren’t technically yours on the grounds that you wasted a portion of your life and those hours have all gone southside.

Regret... when it comes to you, I have oceans of it.

... love is too delicate a flower to rise again when one has trampled it under foot.

Only then does he realize what he has done to Mirabelle, how wanting a square inch of her and not all of her has damaged them both, and how he cannot justify his actions except that, well, it was life.

Regret, already sogging me down, burst its dam. It seeped into my legs, it pooled in my heart.

I’m a screwed-up person who no longer knows how to communicate with the people I love. But I meant everything I told you in my letter. If I were your Nikki, I would have come back to you on Christmas Day, but I’m not Nikki. I know. And I’m sorry.

To lose love is a terrible thing. But to turn away from it is unbearable. Will you spend the rest of your life replaying it in your head? Wondering if you walked away too soon or too easily? Or if you'll ever love anyone that deeply again?