Circle Of Friends Quotes
"It was easy to cope with Knockglen when you had a friend."
"Making a show of yourself was high on the list of sins in Knockglen."
"Mother Francis always says it's a pity to judge people by the garments they wear."
"You make my parents say very interesting things."
"We should have a rehearsal - you know, go up for a couple of days ahead of everyone else so we won't look like eejits."
"I wish to God you were coming to college, too."
"Everyone keeps saying that it's great, we have each other, but I'd see more of you if you were still in Knockglen."
"No one had ever dared to say that there was anything different or even unusual about Eve living in the convent, sharing her life with the Community."
"Wouldn't it be a poor thing to have the man close his shop and walk back for a kind of half-hearted snack."
"As usual the burden of the whole house fell on herself and Patsy."
"Annabel could hardly believe that she had a daughter about to go to university."
"Patsy had always told Mrs. Hogan that it was like being dead and going to Heaven to have a room of your own."
"If we all understood the way the Universe was run, what would there be left for God to tell us on the Last Day."
"Mother Francis knew it must be part of his divine plan, but at times she wondered had she prayed hard enough."
"It's too high a price to pay for the moon," Nan had said.
"You can see everything! It's like being God."
"Mother Francis the celibate nun who had never thought she could know the joy of seeing a child grow up in her care had loved Eve in a way that might well have made her blind to the feelings and sensitivities of other people."
"Stop making a mock and a jeer out of other people's business."
"It's the same the whole world over, Sister," he said, "but it's sad it should come to Ireland as well."
"I'll try to make you proud of me. Make you feel glad you've spent so much to put a daughter through college."
"It would be nice to have been able to offload your worries onto someone or something like that."
"Never again would anyone offer her an iron bed in a dark poky little room."
"There were thousands like herself who would never get in. It was unfair."
"It was going to be great to be the very Unwise Woman on occasions."
"You're much wiser not to draw attention to yourself. Wear dark colours. Nothing flashy."
"It's an ill wind that brings no minds to change."
"Why on God's earth are they allowing me to go to university?"
"I like being as thick as thieves with her. She's my friend."
"I don't like talking about Eve behind her back."
"I could learn tailoring by sitting at a bench."
"I'm not staying either, that's for good and certain."
"But you had to. You had to give him freedom. That was the greatest gift, that was what he would have wanted most. You gave him the best he could want."
"In a few days, when the funeral's over, I want you to come and stay with me," she said softly.
"No, you are, you still are, you'll always be his mother, nobody can take that away from you. And all you gave him, all you did for him."
"It's simple and peaceful. And you could spend a few days there."
"Because my heart goes out to you. And because my girl was hurt in the same crash .. she's going to be all right, but it's a shock seeing her so pale in a hospital bed.."
"I gather you're trying to get into college. This might be of some use to you," she said.
"This is just what I need, thank you very much indeed," she said.
"I never beg either, it must be a family trait."
"There would be no tears. No pleading. Neither would there be recriminations."
"So what do we do now?" she asked in a level voice. There was nothing arrogant or pleading about it.
"All I ever see in Dublin when I go there is students from both universities drinking coffee and talking about changing the world."
"You'll have to forgive me, I am not saying this in any way to be offensive, but I don't know if your name is Maloney or O'Malone, or what?"
"Common politeness must make her thank him. The words stuck in her throat."
"We'll make a great life out of it," Eve assured her.
"Not always. Frank used to say to me that I couldn't sit down, that my eyes were never still."
"You didn't know me years ago. Let me see. Around the time you were one or two, if you'd known me then you wouldn't have said I was calm!"
"I was only trying to think of a present for the little girl to give her grandfather," Eddie Hogan said.
"I wish you'd tell me what's wrong with the porridge, Benny."
"Please God may she not talk too much and say stupid things that she'd regret."
"But think of what a delicacy you'd be," said Benny.
"It's just that if ever I married I'd want to be able to put a decent pot of porridge for a man and his mother on the stove."
"I haven't a penny to bless myself with, and you'd have to be sure he'd be a grand big ox of a fellow the size of yourself," said Patsy cheerfully.
"It's just that she very kindly went and took my sister out from school. I'm afraid Heather very probably asked her to do so, in fact I know she did. But anyway Eve took her on a nice day out and is going to again."
"When will I ever wear it again? I'd love you to be the belle of the ball."
"I visit Heather because I want to and she wants me to. It has nothing to do with considerations, as you call them."
"It's great that you'll be working late tonight."
"I intend to spend Christmas at St. Mary's in Knockglen for a variety of reasons."
"Because I couldn't decide which girl to ask, so I asked them all."
"It will be your room here until the day you die."
"Even if you don't want any, the ones that did get to dance might want it when they come back."
"More than anywhere in the world she wanted to be sitting by the fire in Lisbeg."
"I am, Benny, I am, but not everyone apart from yourself and myself recognises this."
"I just pretended it was out of place so that I could touch your face."
"I'm afraid other Fridays are going to seem very dull after tonight."
"It was good that her dress looked expensive and well cut."
"You'd need someone standing at your shoulder saying this means this, and this means the other."
"I doubt that. Great chats about Racine and Corneille in English would be more my line."
"It's very hard to know with men what they mean."
"It was a wonderful drink to have at the end of a lunch on a winter's day."
"She felt as if she had been carrying a heavy weight for miles and miles in some kind of contest."
"But always in that version Francis would be young and would run towards them both, arms outstretched, crying out that he had a daddy and a real home again."
"I'll never play for anyone if I keep eating like I did last night and today. I'm meant to be in training."
"It's the only party there's ever been in Knockglen, Father, you know that. I can't come to any harm, just up at the back of the convent garden."
"Please let her find the right words. The words that would stop her father walking out in the dark out of kindness and peering through the window at Eve's party, wrecking it for everyone, not only Benny."
"Father, I'd rather if you didn't come up for me. It would make me look a bit babyish, you know, in front of all the people from Dublin."
"It's not ours," Mother Francis used to say. "Then why am I tuning it?" he used to ask every year.
"It was very nice to have a place of your own."
"But is she normal?" Jack wanted to know. "She does appear to fancy you, which doesn't augur well for her state of mind."
"You'll be lucky, Aidan Lynch." She pealed with laughter. "I have been lucky. I met you, Eve Malone," he said, without a trace of his usual joky manner.
"I missed your face, and kissing you." He drew her towards him, and kissed her for a long time.
"It must be a wonderful thing to be so popular, she thought, to be able to please people just by being there."
"Isn't it gorgeous?" breathed Carmel, whose plans for the future when Sean was an established businessman now widened to include a small country cottage for weekends.
"It's away from everywhere. You could be here and nobody know a thing about it."
"I think it comes down to a straight contest between Lonnie Donegan 'Putting on the Style' and Elvis being 'All Shook Up' man," he said after some thought.
"Your job will of course be to look after me, and our eight fine children, using your university education to give them a cultured home background."
"I've hardly seen any sparrows in Knockglen. You're all pretty exotic birds to me."
"It was a late hour to arrive. Eve had thought she heard a car pull away down the track a few moments ago, but she had told herself she was imagining it."
"Eve, it's fabulous. It's a jewel. You never told us it was like this."
"Benny, please cry. Please cry. It's awful to see you like this. I'm here. Benny cry, cry for your father."
"They serve it beautifully for him. Even though he's sometimes not able to manage it."
"It's awful only going to people's houses when they're dead," Aidan said suddenly.
"It's all right, it's all right. Everything will sort itself out."
"Nan always said that you should do the hardest thing first, whatever it was."
"You didn't win the prize and keep it unless you lived up to the role."
"Benny sat at the kitchen table and willed the phone to ring."
"She realised that she hadn't the first idea about how her father had run his business all these years."
"Benny paid the undertakers, and the gravediggers, and the priest, and the bill in Shea's."
"The Wise Woman would leave them unspecified for a bit."
"There was nobody she could ask about the books."