Zitat des Tages von Maeve Binchy:
I'm pleased to have outsold great writers. But I'm not insane - I realize I am a writer people buy to take on vacation.
I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation. I'm an escapist kind of writer.
I have great family and good friends; the stories I told became popular, and people all over the world bought them.
My brother married young, and his is the best marriage I know.
I used to dream of some kind of way that you could carry a phone with you - but I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. It doesn't matter nowadays if you are caught in traffic or got lost on the way somewhere. You can just send a text and the recipient will know that you haven't fallen under a bus.
We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. Our love stories are amazingly romantic; our losses and betrayals and disappointments are gigantic in our own minds.
I'm an escapist kind of writer.
I was very pleased, obviously, to have outsold such great writers. But I'm not insane - I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation.
After my hip operation, I had to cut out butter, which I loved, and salt. I no longer eat desserts with lots of cream, and I've cut right back on alcohol.
I suppose, to be fair, I don't miss the energy of youth very much - because I was never fit. So it doesn't matter not being able to walk miles, striding the countryside, taking deep breaths and enjoying the scenery. That was never on my agenda.
I am much more understanding of people than I used to be when I was young - people were either villainous or wonderful. They were painted in very bright colours. The bad side of it - and there is a corollary to everything - is that when we get older, we fuss more. I used to despise people who fussed.
I believed that old people never laughed. I thought they sighed a lot and groaned. They walked with sticks, and they didn't like children on bicycles or roller skates... or with big dogs.
The biggest influence on my books was the fact that I had worked in a newspaper for so long. In a daily paper, you learn to write very quickly; there is no time to sit and brood about what you are going to say.
That's the kind of motif I bring to the books - that people take charge of their own lives.
All I ever wanted to do is to write stories that people will enjoy and feel at home with.
I wore miniskirts in the days when no fat girls should have, and with total delight.
I have been blessed with friends who do things rather than buy things: friends who will change books at the library, take a bag of your old clothes to a thrift store, bring you cuttings and plant them in a window box, fill the bird feeder in your garden when you can't get out.
We asked our friends and relations to lend us their children, and, because we lived in London, children loved to come and stay for their half-term holidays.
Women who start out as ugly ducklings don't become beautiful swans. What they mainly become is confident ducks. They take charge of their lives.
The most important thing to realise is that everyone is capable of telling a story. It doesn't matter where we were born or how we grew up.
I was the big, bossy older sister, full of enthusiasms, mad fantasies, desperate urges to be famous, and anxious to be a saint - a settled sort of saint, not one who might have to suffer or die for her faith.
I love thriller writers. My favourites are Harlan Coban, Lee Child, Ian Rankin, Kathy Reichs and Ed McBain.
I once tried to write a novel about revenge. It's the only book I didn't finish. I couldn't get into the mind of the person who was plotting vengeance.
Growing up in Ireland, there never seemed to be the notion that children should be seen and not heard. We all looked forward to mealtimes when we'd sit around the table and talk about our days. Storytelling and long, rambling conversations were considered good things.
When I was teaching Latin in girls' schools before I became a writer, I didn't much like it if parents would come in and say, 'We'll have less of the Ovid and Virgil and more of the grammar, please.' After all, I was the one in charge. That's how I feel about doctors. You should trust them to do their job properly.
I was very pleased, obviously, to have outsold great writers. But I'm not insane - I do realise that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation.
I think I'm brave because I've made decisions based - I hope not entirely selfishly - on what I think is right for me to do next.
Happiness is knowing and appreciating what you've got. I am very, very, very grateful for what, to me, is dead easy.
Of course I wanted children. Bright, gorgeous, loving children. I could almost see them.
If you're going on a plane journey, you're more likely to take one of my stories than 'Finnegan's Wake.'
I remember watching myself on video and being so disappointed with myself because I was constantly moving around the place and laughing. I thought, 'I must be so much louder than I think I am. From inside it feels fine.'
I didn't get excited by weight loss, and since I was already happy being fat, I couldn't see the point of it all. I'm 6 ft. and weigh about 18 st. or 19 st., but weighing myself is not something I do with much pleasure.
I've been very lucky and I have a happy old age with good family and friends still around.
In my books, there is no 'ugly duckling turning into a beautiful swan' syndrome because if you look at the Hansel and Gretel syndrome, it was a mistake. It wasn't a duckling, it was a cygnet, and that's why it turned into a swan. The duckling should with any luck turn into a nice clucking duck and get on with its life. Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!
I never wanted to write. I just wrote letters home from a kibbutz in Israel to reassure my parents that I was still alive and well fed and having a great time. They thought these letters were brilliant and sent them to a newspaper. So I became a writer by accident.
Never mind money; the gifts of time and skill call into being the richest marketplace in the world.
