Top 1200 Irish Writers Quotes & Sayings - Page 2

British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish Question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the Question.

Irish people never think we're Irish. Americans think we're European or French.

My wife and I both come from Irish families. There are two kinds of Irish families: the hitting kind and the kidding kind. If you're fortunate - and both of us are - you come from the kidding kind of Irish family.

I don't really go around feeling very Irish at all. I don't go to Irish pubs. I've lived so many places, and I'm still so curious about the bigger world. It's grand to be alive in a time when mobility is so accessible.

I have no prouder boast to say I am Irish and have been privileged to fight for the Irish people and for Ireland. If I have a duty I will perform it to the full with the unshakable belief that we are a noble race and that chains and bounds have no part in us

Roughly 1 in 6 Americans have Irish blood. I'd say it's probably safe to assume that the average Irish-American who only comes out on St. Patrick's Day has no idea of the sort of economic powerhouse Ireland has become.

Being Irish means you belong to the clan. It's what you feel. They feel Irish.

There are good writers and bad writers. It's hard to find writers who really speak to you, but the work is out there.

The White House was designed by Hoban, a noted Irish-American architect, and I have no doubt that he believed by incorporating several features of the Dublin style he would make it more homelike for any President of Irish descent. It was a long wait, but I appreciate his efforts.

I've met writers who wanted to be writers from the age of six, but I certainly had no feelings like that. It was only in the Philippines when I was about 15 that I started reading books by very contemporary writers of the Beatnik generation.

Did the Warwickshire militia, who were chiefly artisans, teach the Irish to drink beer, or did they learn from the Irish how to drink whiskey?

Being Irish-American myself, Irish-American material is readily at hand to me.

People often ask me why I sing with a strong Irish accent. I suppose when I was five years old, I spoke with a strong Irish accent, so I sang with one, too.

I think its important to remember where I began. I know that when I talk to other writers, say, writers from the South or writers from abroad, its where they begin as children that is important to them.

Many black people I know are proud of the Irish part of their heritage - an Irish grandparent, say - but they recognise that many people believe in a form of racial purity. And it is from that belief that prejudice starts.

If the Irish programme did not insist on the Irish language I suppose I could call myself a nationalist. As it is, I am content torecognize myself an exile: and, prophetically, a repudiated one.

I'm still an Irish republican; I absolutely believe in Irish unity and am working to achieve that. But over the course of 15 years or more, people like myself and others have been working to end the vicious cycle of conflict.

America is a younger country than England, obviously, and as self-awareness is forming in America - are we a collection of immigrants, are we a load of Italians and Germans and Jews and Brits and Irish, or are we a country with a soul and an identity? - there was a subliminal sense, they knew that the writers would be the ones who would answer those questions.

I don't think Ireland has really embraced me, but it is not really for me to say. Obviously, people shouldn't embrace me just because I'm Irish, but it is where I'm from. I'm extremely proud to be Irish.

Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

Irish Americans are no more Irish than Black Americans are Africans.

I would say that Catholics came in and competed with the Protestant work ethic. That is one thing. And they did assimilate into the broader society and a lot of them, especially Irish Catholic did their best to sound like they were English rather than Irish by dropping and the O and the apostrophe.

I kind of have an interest in all history. And I suspect it comes from being Irish - we like stories, we like telling stories, which makes a lot of us lean towards being writers or actors or directors.

I'm one hundred percent Irish, and I'm very proud that I'm Irish American, though I don't know exactly where my ancestors came from. I just know County Cork.

I think the special thing about Python is that it's a writers' commune. The writers are in charge. The writers decide what the material is.

Ulysses is the greatest anti-racist text in the English language, and it challenges right from the beginning the vicious racism which lies near the foundations of the Irish Free State and of the Irish republic.

Thankfully the rest of the world assumed that the Irish were crazy, a theory that the Irish themselves did nothing to debunk. They had somehow got it into their heads that each fairy lugged around a pot of gold with him wherever he went. While it was true that LEP had a ransom fund, because of its officers' high-risk occupation, no human had ever taken a chunk of it yet. This didn't stop the Irish population in general from skulking around rainbows, hoping to win the supernatural lottery.

As far as Irish writers being great, I think the fact that there have been two languages in Ireland for a very long time; there has obviously been a shared energy between those two languages.

Without writers, none of the entertainment would exist. It starts with writers. Writers are the most important piece of the entire puzzle.

Lord, you're Irish," said Will. "Can you make things that don't have potatoes in them? We had an Irish cook once when I was a boy. Potato pie, potato custard, potatoes with potato sauce.

I try really hard to ask people to take a look at their bookshelves. Are there female writers on it? Gay writers? Writers of color? There should be.

Growing up, I was brought up around Irish music, Irish traditions.

Although the Irish language is connected with the many recollections that twine around the hearts of Irishmen, yet the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communication, is so great that I can witness without a sigh the gradual decline of the Irish language.

If we turn to early Irish literature, as we naturally may, to see what sort of people the Irish were in the infancy of the race, we find ourselves wandering in delighted bewilderment through a darkness shot with lightning and purple flame.

When Coach Mike Brey at Notre Dame was recruiting me, he was like, 'There will be Irish on the front of the jersey; and Irish on the back of the jersey.' But no one actually knows I am a citizen over there.

I'm more from a double world where I wasn't part of anything or invested in anything, because I was Irish, and very Irish, but also the other part of my family, not that it had airs, or money, was descended from the first minister on Cape Ann in the 1620s.

Like a lot of Irish households we read a lot of Irish history. It was almost Soviet, raising the next generation with a mythic view of their history.

I don't think Ireland has ever had a genius for the novel. Of course, there were plenty of Irish novels, but I don't think that was ever the natural means of expression for the Irish.

You're an actor who's Irish, not an Irish actor. And you shouldn't be limited by your extraction.

No, men and women of the Irish race, we shall not fight for England. We shall fight for the destruction of the British Empire and the construction of an Irish republic.

The vice and drunkenness among the lowering laboring classes is growing to frightful excess, and the multitudes of low Irish Catholics … restricted by poverty in their own country run riot in this … as long as we are overwhelmed with Irish immigrants, so long will the evil abound.

Caitriona Balfe, who is Irish, is also in my movie. I asked her to play her Irish accent in the movie, but her own brogue is so faint that I had to keep pumping it up.

Writers - all writers, even screenwriters - like to make their mark. I don't think many screenwriters can write. They pass as writers.

'Ulysses' is the greatest anti-racist text in the English language, and it challenges right from the beginning the vicious racism which lies near the foundations of the Irish Free State and of the Irish republic.

Ironically, there is a history of black/Irish communion here in the states; Irish and African American brothers and sisters have often found common cause in fighting the bigotry both communities faced earlier in the 20th century. However, white skin privilege among the Irish separated them from blacks, who had no such advantage to fall back upon. The solution is to fight bigotry and racism wherever they appear, and to root out the forces of oppression as conscientiously as possible.

We have a tradition of passing our history orally and singing a lot of it and writing songs about it and there's kind of a calling in Irish voices when they're singing in their Irish accent.

The so-called Boer War advertised British vulnerabilities, and these were confirmed by the Irish rising of 1916 and the subsequent creation of the Irish Free State, blows that attracted the notice and attention of colonial dissidents in Asia and Africa.

Irish music in the local pubs was my first exposure to musical expression, and I feel like Irish music is very close to musical theater because it is always telling a story.

I'm an Irish-American, and I grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood.

You're...writing for other writers to an extent-the dead writers whose work you admire, as well as the living writers you like to read.

I'm not so much a rock star, d'ya know what I mean? I play Irish music. There's really no age when you stop playing Irish music. Even if I retired from playing onstage, I'd still be singing in pubs.

I see so many talented writers of color struggling to get their work out to an audience. I know that's the case for all writers - everyone's struggling for attention - but I do think that for writers of color it's harder, and for women it's harder, and for regional writers it's harder, too.

I love a lot of Irish folk music and Irish folk songs.

I want to give Irish kids something to be proud of back home. I want to bring out a stronger image of Ireland instead of 'Irish Spring' and 'Lucky Charms' and all that rubbish.

No Irish nationalist could support any treaty which institutionalizes British government claims to a part of Irish national territory. Indeed, the term - 'constitutional nationalism'- used by Mr.Mallon (SDLP) and his colleagues to describe their political philosophy is a contradiction in terms. The only constitutional nationalist in Ireland today is Sean McBride. He puts his nationalism within a framework of Irish constitutionality. Mr. Mallon, however, puts his within the framework of British constitutionality. Irish nationalism within British constitutionality is a contradiction in terms.

As an Irish person, there's a historical fascination with America: America is the default green and promised land for Irish people and Italians; that's what we grow up with.

I feel like the writers that I'm drawn to, the writers that I really cling to, are the writers who seem to be writing out of a desperate act. It's like their writing is part of a survival kit. Those are the writers that I just absolutely cherish and carry with me everywhere I go.

I think it's important to remember where I began. I know that when I talk to other writers, say, writers from the South or writers from abroad, it's where they begin as children that is important to them.

Sinn Fein is an Irish Republican party. We stood in the Assembly election to deliver a prosperous economy and jobs, to protect and enhance public services, support those most in need, and to progress Irish Unity.

Bill Clinton was one of the greatest presidents that we've seen. He was involved in the peace process in the very beginning, and he not only showed himself to be knowledgeable about Irish history and Irish-British relationships, but also he was very sympathetic to the idea of resolving conflict.