Top 50 Anna Burns Quotes (2024 Update)

Anna Burns Quote: “At the time, age eighteen, having been brought up in a hair-trigger society where the ground rules were – if no physically violent touch was being laid upon you, and no outright verbal insults were being levelled at you, and no taunting looks in the vicinity either, then nothing was happening, so how could you be under attack from something that wasn’t there? At eighteen I had no proper understanding of the ways that constituted encroachment.”

1. “At the time, age eighteen, having been brought up in a hair-trigger society where the ground rules were – if no physically violent touch was being laid upon you, and no outright verbal insults were being levelled at you, and no taunting looks in the vicinity either, then nothing was happening, so how could you be under attack from something that wasn’t there? At eighteen I had no proper understanding of the ways that constituted encroachment.”

Anna Burns Quote: “I’d rather you came out with your filthy, unfitting language for the rest of your life than for you to turn out one of them cowardly people who can’t speak their minds but won’t hold their peace and instead mumble behind hands and get their fights out in sneakery and in whispers.”

2. “I’d rather you came out with your filthy, unfitting language for the rest of your life than for you to turn out one of them cowardly people who can’t speak their minds but won’t hold their peace and instead mumble behind hands and get their fights out in sneakery and in whispers.”

Anna Burns Quote: “The day Somebody McSomebody put a gun to my breast and called me a cat and threatened to shoot me was the same day the milkman died.”

3. “The day Somebody McSomebody put a gun to my breast and called me a cat and threatened to shoot me was the same day the milkman died.”

Anna Burns Quote: “What if one person happened to be sane, longest friend, against a whole background, a race mind, that wasn’t sane, that person would probably be viewed by the mass consciousness as mad – but would that person be mad?”

4. “What if one person happened to be sane, longest friend, against a whole background, a race mind, that wasn’t sane, that person would probably be viewed by the mass consciousness as mad – but would that person be mad?”

Anna Burns Quote: “It’s not about being happy,’ he said, which was, and still is, the saddest remark I’ve ever heard.”

5. “It’s not about being happy,’ he said, which was, and still is, the saddest remark I’ve ever heard.”

Anna Burns Quote: “According to the police, of course, our community was a rogue community. It was we who were the enemy, we who were the terrorists, the civilian terrorists, the associates of terrorists or simply individuals suspected of being but not yet discovered to be terrorists. That being the case, and understood by both parties to be the case, the only time you’d call the police in my area would be if you were going to shoot them, and naturally they would know this and so wouldn’t come.”

6. “According to the police, of course, our community was a rogue community. It was we who were the enemy, we who were the terrorists, the civilian terrorists, the associates of terrorists or simply individuals suspected of being but not yet discovered to be terrorists. That being the case, and understood by both parties to be the case, the only time you’d call the police in my area would be if you were going to shoot them, and naturally they would know this and so wouldn’t come.”

Anna Burns Quote: “She had a glass of Bushmills in one hand and a glass of Bacardi in the other because she was still at that stage of working out what to have for her first drink.”

7. “She had a glass of Bushmills in one hand and a glass of Bacardi in the other because she was still at that stage of working out what to have for her first drink.”

Anna Burns Quote: “After generation upon generation, fathers upon forefathers, mothers upon foremothers, centuries and millennia of being one colour officially and three colours unofficially, a colourful sky, just like that, could not be allowed to be.”

8. “After generation upon generation, fathers upon forefathers, mothers upon foremothers, centuries and millennia of being one colour officially and three colours unofficially, a colourful sky, just like that, could not be allowed to be.”

Anna Burns Quote: “Cats are not adoring like dogs. They don’t care. They can never be relied upon to shore up a human ego. They go their way, do their thing, are not subservient and will never apologise. No one has ever come across a cat apologising and if a cat did, it would patently be obvious it was not being sincere.”

9. “Cats are not adoring like dogs. They don’t care. They can never be relied upon to shore up a human ego. They go their way, do their thing, are not subservient and will never apologise. No one has ever come across a cat apologising and if a cat did, it would patently be obvious it was not being sincere.”

Anna Burns Quote: “She admonished him, saying ‘I think I hate you,’ which meant she didn’t because ‘I think I hate you’ is the same as ‘probably I hate you’, which is the same as ‘I don’t know if I hate you’, which is the same as ‘I don’t hate you, oh my God, my love, I love you, still love you, always, always have I loved you and never have I stopped loving you’.”

10. “She admonished him, saying ‘I think I hate you,’ which meant she didn’t because ‘I think I hate you’ is the same as ‘probably I hate you’, which is the same as ‘I don’t know if I hate you’, which is the same as ‘I don’t hate you, oh my God, my love, I love you, still love you, always, always have I loved you and never have I stopped loving you’.”

Anna Burns Quote: “The truth was dawning on me of how terrifying it was not to be numb, but to be aware, to have facts, retain facts, be adult.”

11. “The truth was dawning on me of how terrifying it was not to be numb, but to be aware, to have facts, retain facts, be adult.”

Anna Burns Quote: “So shiny was bad and ‘too sad’ was bad, and ‘too joyous’ was bad, which meant you had to go around not being anything; also nit thinking, least not at the top level, which was why everybody kept their private thoughts safe and sound in those recesses underneath.”

12. “So shiny was bad and ‘too sad’ was bad, and ‘too joyous’ was bad, which meant you had to go around not being anything; also nit thinking, least not at the top level, which was why everybody kept their private thoughts safe and sound in those recesses underneath.”

Anna Burns Quote: “Not that she could see, but it was unmistakable not to hear what he looked like.”

13. “Not that she could see, but it was unmistakable not to hear what he looked like.”

Anna Burns Quote: “To shoot up a district of women, children, prams and goldfish otherwise, to run them through with swords much as one might like to, would not look good, would look grave, sexist, unbalanced, not only in the glare of the critical side of the home media, but also in the eyes of the international media.”

14. “To shoot up a district of women, children, prams and goldfish otherwise, to run them through with swords much as one might like to, would not look good, would look grave, sexist, unbalanced, not only in the glare of the critical side of the home media, but also in the eyes of the international media.”

Anna Burns Quote: “If we were in a proper relationship and I did live with him and was officially committed to him, first thing I would have to do would be to leave.”

15. “If we were in a proper relationship and I did live with him and was officially committed to him, first thing I would have to do would be to leave.”

Anna Burns Quote: “So yes, keep the lid on, buy old books, read old books, seriously consider those scrolls and clay tablets.”

16. “So yes, keep the lid on, buy old books, read old books, seriously consider those scrolls and clay tablets.”

Anna Burns Quote: “At eighteen I had no proper understanding of the ways that constituted encroachment.”

17. “At eighteen I had no proper understanding of the ways that constituted encroachment.”

Anna Burns Quote: “As for the environment, that too, would object, backing up the pessimism of its people, which was what happened where I lived where the whole place always seemed to be in the dark. It was as if the electric lights were turned off, always turned off, even though dusk was over so they should have been turned on yet nobody was turning them on and nobody noticed either, they weren’t on.”

18. “As for the environment, that too, would object, backing up the pessimism of its people, which was what happened where I lived where the whole place always seemed to be in the dark. It was as if the electric lights were turned off, always turned off, even though dusk was over so they should have been turned on yet nobody was turning them on and nobody noticed either, they weren’t on.”

Anna Burns Quote: “An audible ‘click’ sounded as the milkman and I ran by a bush and this was a bush I’d run by lots of times without clicks coming out of it.”

19. “An audible ‘click’ sounded as the milkman and I ran by a bush and this was a bush I’d run by lots of times without clicks coming out of it.”

Anna Burns Quote: “He’d homed in on that flag issue, the flags-and-emblems issue, instinctive and emotional because flags were invented to be instinctive and emotional – often pathologically, narcissistically emotional – and he meant that flag of the country from ‘over the water’ which was also the same flag of the community from ‘over the road’. It was not a flag greatly welcomed in our community. Not a flag at all welcomed in our community.”

20. “He’d homed in on that flag issue, the flags-and-emblems issue, instinctive and emotional because flags were invented to be instinctive and emotional – often pathologically, narcissistically emotional – and he meant that flag of the country from ‘over the water’ which was also the same flag of the community from ‘over the road’. It was not a flag greatly welcomed in our community. Not a flag at all welcomed in our community.”

Anna Burns Quote: “Lots of people haven’t done anything,′ said longest friend. ‘And still they’re not doing it, will always be not doing it, in their private coffins down at the usual place.”

21. “Lots of people haven’t done anything,′ said longest friend. ‘And still they’re not doing it, will always be not doing it, in their private coffins down at the usual place.”

Anna Burns Quote: “She meant depressions, for da had had them: big, massive, scudding, whopping, black-cloud, infectious, crow, raven, jackdaw, coffin-upon-coffin, catacomb-upon-catacomb, skeletons-upon-skulls-upon-bones crawling along the ground to the grave type of depressions.”

22. “She meant depressions, for da had had them: big, massive, scudding, whopping, black-cloud, infectious, crow, raven, jackdaw, coffin-upon-coffin, catacomb-upon-catacomb, skeletons-upon-skulls-upon-bones crawling along the ground to the grave type of depressions.”

Anna Burns Quote: “People always said you’d better be careful. Though how, when things are out of your hands, when things were never really in your hands, when things are stacked against you, does a person – the little person down here on the earth – be that?”

23. “People always said you’d better be careful. Though how, when things are out of your hands, when things were never really in your hands, when things are stacked against you, does a person – the little person down here on the earth – be that?”

Anna Burns Quote: “He was leaning over, looking out at me, smiling and friendly by way of being obliging. But by now, by age eighteen, ‘smiling, friendly, and obliging’ always had me straight on the alert.”

24. “He was leaning over, looking out at me, smiling and friendly by way of being obliging. But by now, by age eighteen, ‘smiling, friendly, and obliging’ always had me straight on the alert.”

Anna Burns Quote: “If only I’d done such and such instead of such and such, gone there instead of there, said that and not that, or looked different, or hadn’t gone out that day with Ivanhoe or that night or that week or anytime during the last two months.”

25. “If only I’d done such and such instead of such and such, gone there instead of there, said that and not that, or looked different, or hadn’t gone out that day with Ivanhoe or that night or that week or anytime during the last two months.”

Anna Burns Quote: “Next came abortions and I had to guess them also, from ‘vermifuge, squaw mint, Satan’s apple, premature expulsion, being failed in the course of coming into being’ with any doubt dispelled by, ‘Well, daughter, you can’t disappoint me anymore than you’ve already disappointed me, so tell me –what did you procure and which of them drab aunts did you procure it of?”

26. “Next came abortions and I had to guess them also, from ‘vermifuge, squaw mint, Satan’s apple, premature expulsion, being failed in the course of coming into being’ with any doubt dispelled by, ‘Well, daughter, you can’t disappoint me anymore than you’ve already disappointed me, so tell me –what did you procure and which of them drab aunts did you procure it of?”

Anna Burns Quote: “I used to puzzle over the extent of this anger, of all of ma’s blaming and haranguing and complaining. It was only much later that I came to realise that this was a case of her not forgiving him for many things – maybe for all things – and not just for not cheering up.”

27. “I used to puzzle over the extent of this anger, of all of ma’s blaming and haranguing and complaining. It was only much later that I came to realise that this was a case of her not forgiving him for many things – maybe for all things – and not just for not cheering up.”

Anna Burns Quote: “It broke the bounds of credibility, said the news, but lots of things in life break bounds of credibility. Breaking credibility, I was coming to understand, seemed to be what life was about.”

28. “It broke the bounds of credibility, said the news, but lots of things in life break bounds of credibility. Breaking credibility, I was coming to understand, seemed to be what life was about.”

Anna Burns Quote: “That relative, that temporal plane – where sensitivities vary, where no one has the same personal history even if they have the same communal history, where something which is a trigger for one person passes off unnoticed by another person – definitely was the place where the raw living of life and the imperfect mental response to that raw living took place.”

29. “That relative, that temporal plane – where sensitivities vary, where no one has the same personal history even if they have the same communal history, where something which is a trigger for one person passes off unnoticed by another person – definitely was the place where the raw living of life and the imperfect mental response to that raw living took place.”

Anna Burns Quote: “At eighteen I had no proper understanding of the ways that constituted encroachment. I had a feeling for them, an intuition, a sense of repugnance for some situations and some people, but I did not know intuition and repugnance counted, did not know I had a right not to like, not to have to put up with, anybody and everybody coming near.”

30. “At eighteen I had no proper understanding of the ways that constituted encroachment. I had a feeling for them, an intuition, a sense of repugnance for some situations and some people, but I did not know intuition and repugnance counted, did not know I had a right not to like, not to have to put up with, anybody and everybody coming near.”

Anna Burns Quote: “Being loved back by the person he loved to the point where he couldn’t cope anymore with the vulnerable reciprocity of giving and receiving, he ended the relationship to get it over with before he lost it.”

31. “Being loved back by the person he loved to the point where he couldn’t cope anymore with the vulnerable reciprocity of giving and receiving, he ended the relationship to get it over with before he lost it.”

Anna Burns Quote: “Some too, would make mention of the actual word ‘rumour’, as in ‘Rumour says’, before going on to personify rumour, as if it wasn’t they who were launching or perpetuating Rumour themselves.”

32. “Some too, would make mention of the actual word ‘rumour’, as in ‘Rumour says’, before going on to personify rumour, as if it wasn’t they who were launching or perpetuating Rumour themselves.”

Anna Burns Quote: “Okay,’ I said. ‘So if I were to stop walking-while-reading, and hands in pockets, and little night torches, and instead looked right and left and right again for dangerous, unscrupulous forces, does that mean I’ll end up happy?’ ‘It’s not about being happy,’ he said, which was, and still is, the saddest remark I’ve ever heard.”

33. “Okay,’ I said. ‘So if I were to stop walking-while-reading, and hands in pockets, and little night torches, and instead looked right and left and right again for dangerous, unscrupulous forces, does that mean I’ll end up happy?’ ‘It’s not about being happy,’ he said, which was, and still is, the saddest remark I’ve ever heard.”

Anna Burns Quote: “Intense nosiness about everybody had always existed in the area. Gossip washed in, washed out, came, went, moved on to next target.”

34. “Intense nosiness about everybody had always existed in the area. Gossip washed in, washed out, came, went, moved on to next target.”

Anna Burns Quote: “So he made his remarks and felt entitled to make his remarks and I did not speak because I did not know how to respond to this person.”

35. “So he made his remarks and felt entitled to make his remarks and I did not speak because I did not know how to respond to this person.”

Anna Burns Quote: “No longer did I want to explain, for I could see myself in the moment, exactly as she was seeing me, as all of them were seeing me.”

36. “No longer did I want to explain, for I could see myself in the moment, exactly as she was seeing me, as all of them were seeing me.”

Anna Burns Quote: “This was in the renouncers’ plot of the graveyard just up from the Ten Minute area, also known as the No Time Cemetery, the Busy Cemetery, or just simply The Usual Place.”

37. “This was in the renouncers’ plot of the graveyard just up from the Ten Minute area, also known as the No Time Cemetery, the Busy Cemetery, or just simply The Usual Place.”

Anna Burns Quote: “She did horror stories on herself, filling in blanks where I refused to supply information. This meant she wrote the entire script herself.”

38. “She did horror stories on herself, filling in blanks where I refused to supply information. This meant she wrote the entire script herself.”

Anna Burns Quote: “He was convinced, I could see, that this time ’round his words would produce quite the opposite effect on me, as in favorable, as in advantageous, especially as I’d had two brothers in the renouncers myself.”

39. “He was convinced, I could see, that this time ’round his words would produce quite the opposite effect on me, as in favorable, as in advantageous, especially as I’d had two brothers in the renouncers myself.”

Anna Burns Quote: “They were a double-page spread of a woman with long dark, unruly hair, wearing stockings, suspenders, something too, black and lacy. She was smiling out at me, leaning back and opening up for me, which was when I skidded and lost balance, catching full view of her monosyllable as I fell down on the path.”

40. “They were a double-page spread of a woman with long dark, unruly hair, wearing stockings, suspenders, something too, black and lacy. She was smiling out at me, leaning back and opening up for me, which was when I skidded and lost balance, catching full view of her monosyllable as I fell down on the path.”

Anna Burns Quote: “I suspected that if I kept up this curtailing, this cauterizing, all the distrust and systematic removal of myself from society, by age 20 it was more than likely I’d be at the stage of no longer opening my mouth to anyone, anywhere at all.”

41. “I suspected that if I kept up this curtailing, this cauterizing, all the distrust and systematic removal of myself from society, by age 20 it was more than likely I’d be at the stage of no longer opening my mouth to anyone, anywhere at all.”

Anna Burns Quote: “What if the next chapter was the same as this chapter, as had been the last chapter? What if all chapters stayed the same or even, as time went on, got worse?”

42. “What if the next chapter was the same as this chapter, as had been the last chapter? What if all chapters stayed the same or even, as time went on, got worse?”

Anna Burns Quote: “Certainly I knew the feeling of shame and I knew everybody around me knew that feeling as well. In no way was it a weak feeling, for it seemed more potent than anger, more potent than hatred, stronger even than that most disguised of emotions, fear.”

43. “Certainly I knew the feeling of shame and I knew everybody around me knew that feeling as well. In no way was it a weak feeling, for it seemed more potent than anger, more potent than hatred, stronger even than that most disguised of emotions, fear.”

Anna Burns Quote: “Unless you were dealing with the immensely stupid, which I wasn’t, it was best to muss things up, to crease things, to leave tea stains, to place a small but partial muddy footprint, not exactly in the middle of the issue, but slightly to the side of, and hopefully suggestive of and incidental to the issue.”

44. “Unless you were dealing with the immensely stupid, which I wasn’t, it was best to muss things up, to crease things, to leave tea stains, to place a small but partial muddy footprint, not exactly in the middle of the issue, but slightly to the side of, and hopefully suggestive of and incidental to the issue.”

Anna Burns Quote: “On the other hand, being up on, having awareness, clocking everything – both of rumour and of actuality – didn’t prevent things from happening or allow for intervention on, or reversal of things that had already happened. Knowledge didn’t guarantee power, safety or relief and often for some it meant the opposite of power, safety and relief – leaving no outlet for dispersal either, of all the heightened stimuli that had been built by being up on in the first place. Purposely.”

45. “On the other hand, being up on, having awareness, clocking everything – both of rumour and of actuality – didn’t prevent things from happening or allow for intervention on, or reversal of things that had already happened. Knowledge didn’t guarantee power, safety or relief and often for some it meant the opposite of power, safety and relief – leaving no outlet for dispersal either, of all the heightened stimuli that had been built by being up on in the first place. Purposely.”

Anna Burns Quote: “This was not the way of longest friend. Everything meant something to her. Everything was of use to her. Or to be made of use. To be stored away for utility at some future opportunistic date.”

46. “This was not the way of longest friend. Everything meant something to her. Everything was of use to her. Or to be made of use. To be stored away for utility at some future opportunistic date.”

Anna Burns Quote: “There was the fact that you created a political statement everywhere you went, and with everything you did, even if you didn’t want to.”

47. “There was the fact that you created a political statement everywhere you went, and with everything you did, even if you didn’t want to.”

Anna Burns Quote: “What if we accept these points of light, their translucence, their brightness; what if we let ourselves enjoy this, stop fearing it, get used to it; what if we come to believe in it, to expect it, to be impressed upon by it; what if we take hope and forgo our ancient heritage and instead, and infused, begin to entrain with it, with ourselves then to radiate it; what if we do that, get educated up to that, and then, just like that, the light goes off or is snatched away?”

48. “What if we accept these points of light, their translucence, their brightness; what if we let ourselves enjoy this, stop fearing it, get used to it; what if we come to believe in it, to expect it, to be impressed upon by it; what if we take hope and forgo our ancient heritage and instead, and infused, begin to entrain with it, with ourselves then to radiate it; what if we do that, get educated up to that, and then, just like that, the light goes off or is snatched away?”

Anna Burns Quote: “At this time, in this place, when it came to the political problems, which included bombs and guns and death and maiming, ordinary people said ‘their side did it’ or ‘our side did it’, or ‘their religion did it’ or ‘our religion did it’ or ‘they did it’ or ‘we did it’, when what was really meant was ‘defenders-of-the-state did it’ or ‘renouncers-of-the-state did it’ or ‘the state did it’.”

49. “At this time, in this place, when it came to the political problems, which included bombs and guns and death and maiming, ordinary people said ‘their side did it’ or ‘our side did it’, or ‘their religion did it’ or ‘our religion did it’ or ‘they did it’ or ‘we did it’, when what was really meant was ‘defenders-of-the-state did it’ or ‘renouncers-of-the-state did it’ or ‘the state did it’.”

Anna Burns Quote: “Still, I didn’t like the implication that I had contracted an incurable beyond the pale.”

50. “Still, I didn’t like the implication that I had contracted an incurable beyond the pale.”

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