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41 " If you were going to be best friends with anyone – Kevin – you had to hate a lot of other people, the two of you, together. It made you better friends. "
― Roddy Doyle , Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
42 " But it wasn’t boring like this; I loved it, sitting there doing nothing. There wasn’t even anything to look at except the houses across the road. "
43 " It was the secrecy I hated. but. Like we were ashamed. Cos we weren't - not really. It was like we were breakin' the law, an' I'm not even sure we were. Just cause we loved our child. - But it worked out okay, yeah?- Yeah, but it was wrong smuggling her o' the country.- You'll be voting yes, so? - I'll be waitin' for the fucking doors to open. "
― Roddy Doyle , Two for the Road
44 " If there is a heaven, Jane Austen is sitting in a small room with Mother Teresa and Princess Diana, listening to Duran Duran, forever. If there's a hell, she's standing. "
― Roddy Doyle
45 " She's a pot-of-tea-before-I-say-boo-to-you woman. There's always a pile of warm teabags in the sink when I come down, like what a horse would leave behind. "
46 " -I love yeh, son, said Jimmy Sr.He could say it and no one could hear him, except young Jimmy, because of the singing and roaring and breaking glasses.-I think you’re fuckin’ great, said Jimmy Sr.-Ah fuck off, will yeh, said Jimmy Jr. -Packie saved the fuckin’ penalty, not me.But he liked what he’d heard, Jimmy Sr could tell that. He gave Jimmy Sr a dig in the stomach.-You’re not a bad oul’ cunt yourself, he said. "
― Roddy Doyle , The Van (The Barrytown Trilogy, #3)
47 " The best way to reveal a character is to get them to open their mouths. "
48 " - Brother Jimmy, said Joey the Lips. - I'm worried. - About Dean. - Wha' abou' Dean? - He told me he's been listening to jazz. - What's wrong with tha'? Jimmy wanted to know. - Everything, said Joey the Lips. - Jazz is the antithesis of soul. - I beg your fuckin' pardon! - I'll go along with Joey there, said Mickah. - See, said Joey the Lips. - Soul is the people's music. Ordinary people making music for ordinary people. - Simple music. Any Brother can play it. The Motown sound, it's simple. Thump-thump-thump-thump. - That's straight time. Thump-thump-thump-thump. - See? Soul is democratic, Jimmy. Anyone with a bin lid can play it. - It's the people's music. - Yeh don't need anny honours in your Inter to play soul, isn't tha' wha' you're gettin' at, Joey? - That's right, brother Michael. - Mickah. - Brother Mickah. That's right. You don't need a doctorate to be a doctor of soul. - Nice one. - An' what's wrong with jazz? Jimmy asked. - Intellectual music, said Joey the Lips. - It's anti-people music. It's abstract. - It's cold an' emotionless, amn't I righ'? said Mickah. - You are. - It's got no soul. It is sound for the sake of sound. It has no meaning. - It's musical wanking, Brother. - Musical wankin', said Mickah. - That's good. - Here, yeh could play tha' at the Christmas parties. - Instead o' musical chairs. "
49 " It often seemed that the trees were flu of people whispering--especially tonight. "
50 " Her granny was asleep and Mary knew it was special, this trip. It was something that hadn't been planned. It was actually impossible. Four generations of women--"I'm a woman," Mary said to herself--heading off on a journey in a car. One of them dead, one of them dying, one of them driving, one of them just starting out. "
51 " They ran. They stayed warmer that way and running seemed to be the right way to measure their love for Uncle Ben. They wanted to hear their breath, and their feet stamping the ground. They wanted to feel their lungs working, and their hearts. "
52 " They'd had a fight again.– You'll have your work cut out for you, I said.One of their quiet ones.She laughed.Where they whispered their screams and roaring.She laughed at me.And she was always the first one to cry and he kept stabbing at her with his face and his words. "
53 " The dockers were the hardest men in the world. Their guts were lined with coal dust and pitch. They came to work armed with blades, iron bars, bale-hooks, their own knuckle-dusters. They drank to wake up in the early houses before work. And they drank during work, washed down the world’s dirt and grit and fed the headaches. And after work when they went to collect their wages, in Paddy Clare’s or Jack Maher’s, the dockers’ pubs, they drank what was left in their hands after the stevedore had finished doing his sums. While their children starved - and their wives too, on top of being fucked by the stevedore after he’d drunk his cut of the wages or sold them back to Paddy Clare - the dockers drank themselves into fighting form and looked around for some poor goat to take the place of the stevedore. Glasses of whiskey went into the pints of porter. And God help any poor eejit who walked in on top of a roaring docker swinging his belt. Harmless men ended up in the river and some of them never climbed out; they went under the lock and fed the mullet. The dockers were beyond the law. They knew no rules except their own and the stevedore’s. They were heady company for a young man who’d been left all alone by the dead. And I started to keep up with them. "
― Roddy Doyle , A Star Called Henry (The Last Roundup, #1)
54 " Things you make up bleed into things tha' definitely happened. Like describin' an event, an actual occasion. You add to it, you take things out. You forget exact details. I don't think it's dishonest. "
― Roddy Doyle , Love