Edna O'Brien Quotes

You can have the best of intentions and think you're doing the right thing but you fall down when you're going against your own instinct.

Might we not say to the confused voices which sometimes arise from the depths of our being: "Ladies, be so kind as to speak only four at a time?"

I feel there are two people inside me - me and my intuition. If I go against her, she'll screw me every time, and if I follow her, we get along quite nicely.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

Often, when I want to consult my impulses, I cannot find them.

The tension between 'yes' and 'no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot', makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.

Anyone can identify with those moments in life where circumstances or people inform us that we've strayed from the path of our better nature and intentions. We know what that's like, and we resist it - so as not to feel like we're bad people.

There is an invisible strength within us; when it recognizes two opposing objects of desire, it grows stronger.

Sometimes I wish I was less of a maniac; sometimes I wish I was more.

I agree with myself on 80 percent of things, but when I look at myself in the mirror in the morning, I still have inner debates about the right thing to do.

You should listen to your heart, and not the voices in your head.

I look at myself but I'm missing. I know myself: it’s not me.

Every one of us ... knows better than he practices, and recognizes a better law than he obeys.

Listening to the inner voice - trusting the inner voice - is one of the most important lessons of leadership.

Sometimes we do not hear the Whisperer even at her loudest because she speaks in our own voice, the one we most often discount.

I just listened to that inner voice. By the way, it's always a good move to listen to that inner voice... if it doesn't lead to a crime

I know myself," he cried, "but that is all-

Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything.

The world's most sensible person and the biggest idiot both stay within us. The worst part is, you can't even tell who is who.

Sometimes you can get so far in yourself that you don't know who you are.

Do you even know who the enemy is?" "I think... it's me".

I can be very in my head, but I don't trust my head all that much. My head is crazy. My head will talk to itself all day and all night if I let it. And my heart is less nutty, but it's kind of like an overexcited child. I don't trust my heart all that much either. My body is like a good horse. I trust my body.

What's your heart telling you to do? I don't know.' Maybe, you're trying too hard to hear it.

I almost do not exist now and I know it; God knows what lives in me in place of me.

We may listen to our inner self-and still not know which ocean we hear roaring.