Edna O'Brien

Josephine Edna O'Brien (born 15 December 1930) is an Irish novelist, short-story writer and playwright, who has been resident in the United Kingdom since the 1950s. Much of her work was at one time banned in Ireland, but she has found an appreciative audience in her adopted country and in the United States.

Quotes

 * The vote, I thought, means nothing to women, we should be armed.
 * Girls in their Married Bliss (London: Jonathan Cape, 1964) p. 78


 * Oh, God, who does not exist, you hate women, otherwise you'd have made them different. And Jesus, who snubbed your mother, you hate them more.
 * Girls in their Married Bliss (London: Jonathan Cape, 1964) p. 119


 * Writers really live in the mind and in hotels of the soul.
 * Interviewed in Vogue, April 1985


 * It is increasingly clear that the fate of the universe will come to depend more and more on individuals as the bungling of bureaucracy permeates every corner of our existence.
 * New York Times Book Review, February 14, 1993

Quotes about Edna O'Brien

 * She has always ridden the passions as if they were a magnificent horse.
 * Anatole Broyard, in the New York Times, January 1, 1978


 * (Tell us about your favorite short story.) “Old Wounds,” by Edna O’Brien, haunts me as though I’ve lived it.
 * Louise Erdrich interview (2016)