Top 140 Marian Keyes Quotes (2026 Update)

1. “The old Chinese proverb springs to mind – No pain, no gain.”

— Marian Keyes

2. “My truth is that what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker rather than stronger, although it makes you wiser.”

— Marian Keyes

3. “Love and kindness go hand in hand.”

— Marian Keyes

4. “Relationship gurus always said that an attraction based on friendship and mutual respect was far more likely to stay the course – and the bastards were right.”

— Marian Keyes

5. “You will go on and meet someone else and I’ll just be a chapter in your tale, but for me, you were, you are and you always will be, the whole story.”

— Marian Keyes

6. “How to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.”

— Marian Keyes

7. “That one day you will be happy again. Your life will get better.”

— Marian Keyes

8. “One day we’ll all be dead and none of this will matter.”

— Marian Keyes

9. “The things we dislike most in others are the characteristics we like least in ourselves.”

— Marian Keyes

10. “When God closes one door, He slams another in your face.”

— Marian Keyes

11. “Chick Lit uses humor to reflect life back to us. It’s a very comforting genre, and it’s the first time our generation has had a voice. It’s a very important genre for all of those reasons.”

— Marian Keyes

12. “I’m quite introverted but I’m not shy.”

— Marian Keyes

13. “Waiting to be ‘better’ is the wrong approach. It’s learning to live with it.”

— Marian Keyes

14. “I had spent my whole life feeling homesick. The only difference between the two of us was that I didn’t know what or where home was.”

— Marian Keyes

15. “Human touch is as important as water and food and air and laughter and new shoes.”

— Marian Keyes

16. “Instead of thinking, “Why me?” I think, “Why not me?”’ Extract from One Blink at a Time In.”

— Marian Keyes

17. “Love is blind, there was no doubt about it. In Tara’s case it was also deaf, dumb, dyslexic, had a bad hip and the beginnings of Alzheimer’s.”

— Marian Keyes

18. “I like hoodies. They just make me feel safe.”

— Marian Keyes

19. “What doesn’t kill us makes us funnier.”

— Marian Keyes

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20. “This being human is a Guest House Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, Some momentary awareness comes As an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, Who violently sweep your house Empty of its furniture. Still treat each guest honourably, He may be clearing you out for some new delight.”

— Marian Keyes

21. “Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together – Marilyn Monroe.”

— Marian Keyes

22. “The Chinese word for “crisis” also means “opportunity.”

— Marian Keyes

23. “I loved being in my own head so much, it was getting harder and harder being with other people.”

— Marian Keyes

24. “Where does love go when it dies? Into flowers and other beautiful things? Back out into the universe to be recycled?”

— Marian Keyes

25. “I’ve kind of realized life is meant to be tough and everybody is in psychic and spiritual discomfort of some sort and has a burden to carry. I’ve realized I’m not special.”

— Marian Keyes

26. “Medically speaking, there is no such thing as a nervous breakdown. Which is very annoying to discover when you’re right in the middle of one.”

— Marian Keyes

27. “Not everyone can find a cure for cancer. Someone has to make the dinners and sort the socks.”

— Marian Keyes

28. “I used to write in bed, starting when I woke up. I believe that creative work comes from our subconscious mind, so I try to keep the gap between sleep and writing as minimal as possible.”

— Marian Keyes

29. “No one knows how strong they are until they have to be.”

— Marian Keyes

30. “I knew it, I just knew it! The person who had the job of writing my life’s dialogue used to work on a very low budget soap opera.”

— Marian Keyes

31. “Sometimes you get what you want and sometimes you get what you need and sometimes you get what you get.”

— Marian Keyes

32. “If it is made with love, the imperfect becomes perfect.”

— Marian Keyes

33. “I wake with a thought: This is my life. I’ve only got one. I should live it the way I want.”

— Marian Keyes

34. “Is this what life is all about? To bring us face to face with our worst fears until they no longer scare us?”

— Marian Keyes

35. “No more humiliation for me, thanks very much. No more swallowing my anger. Honestly, I couldn’t manage another mouthful. But it was delicious. Did you make it yourself?”

— Marian Keyes

36. “Accepting all that is given to me and all that is taken away. Recognizing that even loss and pain are gifts.”

— Marian Keyes

37. “You have a magnificent moustache. You must be very proud of it.”

— Marian Keyes

38. “This is... life, where hearts get kicked and bruised and broken, but somehow they still keep beating.”

— Marian Keyes

39. “Desserts. I ordered banoffee pie.”

— Marian Keyes

40. “They say the path of true love never runs smooth. Well, Luke and my true love’s path didn’t run at all, it limped along in new boots that were chafing its heels. Blistered and cut, red and raw, every hopping, lopsided step, a little slice of agony.”

— Marian Keyes

41. “Fight today’s war today. Leave tomorrow’s war until tomorrow.”

— Marian Keyes

42. “I’d rather dig a ditch than go to a dinner party with people I don’t know.”

— Marian Keyes

43. “I know of people who don’t believe it, but depression is an illness, but unlike, say, a broken leg, you don’t know when it’ll get better.”

— Marian Keyes

44. “Baking makes me focus. On weighing the sugar. On sieving the flour. I find it calming and rewarding because, in fairness, it is sort of magic – you start off with all this disparate stuff, such as butter and eggs, and what you end up with is so totally different. And also delicious.”

— Marian Keyes

45. “I haven’t had Botox because my face is a bit lopsided and I depend on keeping everything animated so that people don’t notice.”

— Marian Keyes

46. “I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I’d have loved to have children.”

— Marian Keyes

47. “Ireland?” “Small wet place across the Irish Sea,” Barry offered kindly. “Where they drink a lot?” Lisa said faintly. “And they never stop talking. That’s the place.”

— Marian Keyes

48. “I am prone to despair. We are all born with a particular personality. I get afraid and then I don’t want to leave the house.”

— Marian Keyes

49. “Failed relationships can be described as so much wasted make-up.”

— Marian Keyes

50. “Why do we have such a finite capacity for pleasure but an infinite one for pain?”

— Marian Keyes