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John McGahern

John McGahern Quotes

Writer

John McGahern was an Irish writer known for his profound emotional depth and delicate prose. His works often focus on rural Irish life, particularly in his hometown of County Sligo. McGahern's novels and short stories are celebrated for their deep character portrayals.

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Famous John McGahern Quotes

“... and there were people wandering the town who had no people to meet, who did not want to be alone and were not noticed.”

Book:That They May Face the Rising Sun

Source: That They May Face the Rising Sun

“They'd listen silenty, with grave faces: but once they'd turn to each other they'd smile cruelly. He couldn't have it both ways. He'd put himself outside and outside they'd make him stay. Neither brutality nor complaining could force a way in.”

Children Father Abuse Ireland Daddy John Mcgahern

Book:The Dark

Source: The Dark

“…only then did I wake out of the book.”

Author:John McGahern

“As men obsessed with the idea that all knowledge lies within a woman's body, but having entered it to find themselves as ignorant as before, they are driven towards all women again and again: in childish hope that somehow the next time they will find the treasure, and then the equally childish desire for revenge since it cannot be found, that knife in the unfathomable entrails; and they grow full of hatred.”

Getting Through

Author:John McGahern

“I think that each of us inhabits a private world that others cannot see. The only difference between the writer and the reader is that the writer is able to dramatize that private world.”

Life Privacy John Mcgahern

Author:John McGahern

“I mean I think that's a fact and I think that we had a very peculiar type of Catholic Church here in that it was a fortress Church.”

Thinking Mean Facts Church Type Catholic Peculiar Catholic Church Fortresses

Author:John McGahern

“The imagination demands that life be told slant because of its need of distance.”

Needs Life Is Imagination Demand Distance

Book:Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories

Source: Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories

“Among its many other obligations, fiction always has to be believable. Life does not have to suffer such constraint, and much of what takes place is believable only because it happens.”

Doe Happens Suffering Fiction Obligation Constraints Believable

Book:Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories

Source: Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories

“I suppose . . . in writing you can't have regrets. I mean, you just get it down the way it was . . . it's only wishful thinking that things could be other than they were.”

Thinking Way Writing Mean Regret Wishful Thinking

Author:John McGahern

“Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity.”

Knows Use Language Sky Identity Speech Rain Ghost Ireland English Language Rainy Day Ireland And The Irish Gaelic

Author:John McGahern

“Amongst Women concentrated on the family, and the new book concentrates on a small community. The dominant units in Irish society are the family and the locality. The idea was that the whole world would grow out from that small space.”

World Book Ideas Whole Grows Community Space Whole World Dominant Units New Books Locality Small Spaces Small Communities

Author:John McGahern

“When I start to write, words have become physical presence. It was to see if I could bring that private world to life that found its first expression through reading. I really dislike the romantic notion of the artist.”

Ifs World Writing Firsts Artist Reading Found Expression Romantic Notion If I Could Dislike Romantic Love

Author:John McGahern

“When you're in danger of losing a thing it becomes precious and when it's around us, it's in tedious abundance and we take it for granted as if we're going to live forever, which we're not.”

Ifs Forever Danger Losing Granted Abundance Tedious Live Forever

Author:John McGahern

“Without the book business it would be difficult or impossible for true books to find their true readers and without that solitary (and potentially subversive) alone with a book the whole razzmatazz of prizes, banquets, television spectaculars, bestseller lists, even literature courses, editors and authors, are all worthless. Unless a book finds lovers among those solitary readers, it will not live . . . or live for long.”

Long Book Whole Would Be Courses Literature Difficult Impossible Television Reader Lovers Lists Prize Editors Solitary Worthless Finding Love Subversive Banquets

Author:John McGahern

“The best of life is life lived quietly, where nothing happens but our calm journey through the day, where change is imperceptible and the precious life is everything.”

Happens Life Is Journey Calm Things Happen Precious Life

Book:Memoir

Source: Memoir

“Anything that is given can be at once taken away. We have to learn never to expect anything, and when it comes it's no more than a gift on loan.”

Given Taken Possession Loan

Author:John McGahern

“Ireland is a peculiar society in the sense that it was a nineteenth century society up to about 1970 and then it almost bypassed the twentieth century.”

Century Peculiar Ireland Twentieth Century Nineteenth Century Being Irish Ireland And The Irish

Author:John McGahern

“My favorite optimist was an American who jumped off the Empire State Building, and as he passed the 42nd floor, the window washers heard him say, 'So Far, so good.'”

States Heard Building Window My Favorite Empires Optimist Empire State Building Empire State

Author:John McGahern

“As a writer, I write to see. If I knew how it would end, I wouldn't write. It's a process of discovery.”

Ifs Writing Ends Process Discovery

Author:John McGahern

“When I was in my 20s it did occur to me that there was something perverted about an attitude that thought that killing somebody was a minor offence compared to kissing somebody.”

Attitude Kissing Killing Minors Offence

Author:John McGahern

“I used to take five or six books away and bring five or six books back. Nobody gave me direction or advice and I read much in the way that a boy might watch television.”

Way Book Might Used Boys Watches Five Advice Television Six

Author:John McGahern

“...with a rush of feeling he felt that this must be happiness. As soon as the thought came to him, he fought it back, blaming the whiskey. The very idea was as dangerous as presumptive speech: happiness could not be sought or worried into being, or even fully grasped; it should be allowed its own slow pace so that it passes unnoticed, if it ever comes at all.”

Ifs Should Ideas Feelings Felt Dangerous Speech Blame Worried Pace Whiskey Unnoticed

Author:John McGahern

“Nothing ever holds together unless it is mixed with some of one's own blood”

Book:The Pornographer

Source: The Pornographer

“I think technique can be taught but I think the only way to learn to write is to read, and I see writing and reading as completely related. One almost couldn't exist without the other.”

Thinking Way Writing Reading Taught Technique Related Writing And Reading

Author:John McGahern

“I belong to the middle class that grew up very influenced by the Catholic church. The people of the novel are from a more pagan and practical world in which the Christianity is just a veneer.”

People World Church Christianity Class Novel Middle Grew Grew Up Catholic Practicals Middle Class Catholic Church Pagan Veneer

Author:John McGahern

“My father was very outwardly religious.”

Father Religious

Author:John McGahern

“I read all the time. I was reading a book I admire very much by Alice McDermot called Charming Billy.”

Book Reading Admire Charming

Author:John McGahern

“We absolutely believed in Heaven and Hell, Purgatory, and even Limbo. I mean, they were actually closer to us than Australia or Canada, that they were real places.”

Mean Real Heaven Hell Canada Australia Heaven And Hell Purgatory Limbo

Author:John McGahern

“I'd much prefer to write more quickly.”

Author:John McGahern

“I think that each of us inhabits a private world that others cannot see. The only difference between the writer and the reader is that the writer is able to dramatise that private world.”

Thinking World Able Differences Reader

Author:John McGahern

“I feel I grew up in a different century than I live in. I think most of them are changes for the good.”

Thinking Feels Different Century Grew Grew Up

Author:John McGahern

“I've never written anything that hasn't been in my mind for a long time - seven or eight years.”

Years Mind Long Written Long Time Seven Eight

Author:John McGahern

“I think fiction is a very serious thing, that while it is fiction, it is also a revelation of truth, or facts.”

Thinking Writing Facts Fiction Serious Revelations Serious Things

Author:John McGahern

“Yes, though I have nothing but gratitude for my upbringing in the church.”

Church Gratitude Upbringing

Author:John McGahern

“I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.”

Church Poor Description Gothic Printed Printed Word

Author:John McGahern

“Yes, but also one of the problems for a novelist in Ireland is the fact that there are no formal manners. I mean some people have beautiful manners but there's no kind of agreed form of manners.”

People Kind Mean Facts Problem Beautiful Form Manners Novelists Ireland Formal

Author:John McGahern

“The way I see it is that all the ol' guff about being Irish is a kind of nonsense. I mean, I couldn't be anything else no matter what I tried to be. I couldn't be Chinese or Japanese.”

Way Kind Mean Matter No Matter What Chinese Nonsense Being Irish

Author:John McGahern

“I think my mother was very spiritual.”

Thinking Spiritual Mother

Author:John McGahern

“The rosary was said every evening. I always liked that sentence about the medieval Churches, that they were the Bibles of the poor. The Church was my first book and I would think it is still my most important book.”

Thinking Firsts Said Stills Important Book Church Poor Sentences Evening Medieval Rosary Rosary Beads

Author:John McGahern

“I think there's a great difference in consciousness in that same way in that when we're young we read books for the story, for the excitement of the story - and there comes a time when you realise that all stories are more or less the same story.”

Thinking Way Book Stories Young Differences Consciousness Excitement Realising There Comes A Time

Author:John McGahern

About the Author

Born: November 12, 1934
Died: March 30, 2006
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 40

Related Topics

Thinking Book Writing Church Mean Way Ifs Ireland Reading World

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected StoriesRelated source material

MemoirRelated source material

That They May Face the Rising SunRelated source material

The DarkRelated source material

The PornographerRelated source material

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