Sebastian Barry quotes

I knew immediately something was terribly wrong, but you can know that and not allow the thought in your head, at the front of your head. It dances around at the back, where it can't be controlled. But the front of the head is where the pain begins. (Sebastian Barry)
After all the world is indeed beautiful and if we were any other creature than man we might be continuously happy in it. View quote
Sebastian Barry
Because it strikes me there is something greater than judgement. I think it is called mercy. View quote
Sebastian Barry
It is very difficult to be a hero without an audience, although, in a sense, we are each the hero of a peculiar, half-ruined film called our life. View quote
Sebastian Barry
Because faithfulness is not a human question, but a divine one. View quote
Sebastian Barry
A man's memory might have only a hundred clear days in it and he has lived thousands. Can't do much about that. We have our store of days and we spend them like forgetful drunkards. View quote
Sebastian Barry
There is such solace in the mere sight of water. It clothes us delicately in its blowing salt and scent, gossamer items that medicate the poor soul. View quote
Sebastian Barry
That is because at the close of the day the ship we sail in is the soul, not the body. View quote
Sebastian Barry
I am old enough to know that time passing is just a trick, a convenience. Everything is always there, still unfolding, still happening. The past, the present, and the future, in the noggin eternally, like brushes, combs and ribbons in a handbag. View quote
Sebastian Barry
The world is not full of betrayers, it is full of people with decent motives and a full desire to do right by those who know them and love them. This is a little-known truth, but I think it is a truth nonetheless. Empirically, from all the years of my work, I would attest to that. I know it is a miraculous conclusion, but there it is. We like to make strangers of everyone. We are not wolves, but lambs astonished in the margins of the fields by sunlight and summer. View quote
Sebastian Barry
It is always worth itemising happiness, there is so much of the other thing in a life, you had better put down the markers for happiness while you can. (Sebastian Barry)
And whatever my life had been up to that day, it was another life after that. And that is the gospel truth. View quote
Sebastian Barry
It is funny, but it strikes me that a person without anecdotes that they nurse while they live, and that survive them, are more likely to be utterly lost not only to history but the family following them. Of course this is the fate of most souls, reducing entire lives, no matter how vivid and wonderful, to those sad black names on withering family trees, with half a date dangling after and a question mark. View quote
Sebastian Barry
A beard on a man is only a way of hiding something, his face of course, but also the inner matters, like a hedge around a secret garden, or a cover over a bird cage. View quote
Sebastian Barry
The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to say. He forgot to say, with every death it ends. Or did not think he needed to. Because for a goodly part of his life he worked in a graveyard. View quote
Sebastian Barry
Tears have a better character cried alone. Pity can sometimes be more wolf than dog. View quote
Sebastian Barry
There is seldom a difficulty with religion where there is friendship. View quote
Sebastian Barry
I rose and moved towards him. You would have done the same yourself. It is an ancient matter. Something propels you towards sudden grief, or perhaps also sometimes repels. You move away. I moved towards it, I couldn't help it. View quote
Sebastian Barry
For I did not want him to see, or to question me, for here contains already secrets, and my secrets are my fortune and my sanity. View quote
Sebastian Barry
It had been a war of kingly poisons, in the air, in the memory, in the blood. View quote
Sebastian Barry

Sebastian Barry

Occupation: Playwright
Born: July 5, 1955
Quotes count: 20

Related authors

John Banville - thumbnail
John Banville  131 
Irish Novelist
Colm Tóibín - thumbnail
Colm Tóibín  61 
Irish Novelist
Anne Enright - thumbnail
Anne Enright  70 
Irish Author
Brendan Behan - thumbnail
Brendan Behan  43 
Irish Poet
Dermot Bolger  1 
Novelist
Roddy Doyle - thumbnail
Roddy Doyle  30 
Irish Novelist
Martin McDonagh - thumbnail
Martin McDonagh  22 
British Playwright
William Trevor  7 
Irish Writer
Aravind Adiga  51 
Indian Journalist
Kevin Barry - thumbnail
Kevin Barry  11 
Irish Author