Top 140 Marian Keyes Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “I am different when my nails are done. I am more dynamic. I gesticulate more, I am better at scaring my staff. I can indicate impatience by drumming on tabletops and I can wrap up a meeting with a few choice clatters.”

— Marian Keyes

52. “He seemed wild and dangerous and carefree – well, he would, would’nt he? What were motorcycles and black leather pants if not the uniform of a wild, dangerous and carefree man?”

— Marian Keyes

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

— Marian Keyes

54. “Love is an emotion. It can’t be seen or touched, and it is experienced differently by everyone, therefore it is difficult to measure.”

— Marian Keyes

55. “But that’s the point, Amy. It’s easy to love someone when they’re on their best behaviour – you can do that in your sleep. The real test is when they’re – to use Neeve’s expression – a pain in the hole. That’s what love actually means.”

— Marian Keyes

56. “Although will never love anyone again, don’t want to become bitter. Or creative.”

— Marian Keyes

57. “So I’m back again to the eternal question, the one that has plagued me all my life: How Do Other People Do It? How come they were given life’s rule book and I missed out? Where was I when God was dispensing capability and cop on? Looking at shoes, probably.”

— Marian Keyes

58. “I’m seized by sudden horrible fear – the thought of living without carbs is terrifying.”

— Marian Keyes

59. “I click to buy it and I’m furious to discover that it’s not available in Ireland and they won’t post it from abroad and the only place that sells it is Harrods and it’s impossible for me to go to Harrods because it’s like being trapped in an Escher painting.”

— Marian Keyes

60. “For all of my life it was the size of my rear that caused me the most hand-wringing, but in this nearly-50 zone it is my stomach that is the problem. It seems to have broken free from its moorings and there is no knowing how far it will roam.”

— Marian Keyes

61. “But being a survivor is hard bloody work, harder than it looks, and I think I might be running low on survivor juice. Given the choice, I’d far rather a pampered life of indulgence where nothing bad ever happens.”

— Marian Keyes

62. “Perhaps one day in the far-off future, when I’m about eighty-nine, I might look back and say, “When I was a young-ish woman I fell in love with an intense charismatic man. He was way out of my league and when it ended it nearly killed me, but every woman should experience that sort of love once in their lives. Only once, mind, you mightn’t survive a second bout. A bit like dengue fever, that way.” I.”

— Marian Keyes

63. “Political correctness is a minefield.”

— Marian Keyes

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

— Marian Keyes

65. “What is so wrong with us that we rush into situations to which we are manifestly unsuited, which will hurt us and others? Why are we given emotions which we cannot control and which move in exact contradiction to what we really want? We are walking conflicts, internal battles on legs and if human beings were cars, we would return them for being faulty.”

— Marian Keyes

66. “To be able to scratch the sole of my foot using the big toe of the other foot is nothing short of a miracle.”

— Marian Keyes

67. “I was anxious to please, even if I hated the recipient of my pleasing. My pleasee.”

— Marian Keyes

68. “It was only when the salt water of my tears ran into my cuts and made them sting that I discovered I was crying.”

— Marian Keyes

69. “I did all kinds of reckless things that look great if you’re driving a fast car. I pulled away form traffic lights with a roar, leaving the other drivers staring bitterly after me – that was called “burning them up” said Daniel. I drove out in front of other cars – Daniel said that was called “cutting them up” and while we were stuck in a traffic jam, I winked and smiled at attractive men in other cars – Daniel said that was called “acting like a brazen trollop.”

— Marian Keyes

70. “It was just that this was real life and no decision was clearly sign-posted. It’s not like you take the right turning and you get everlasting happiness and you take the wrong one and you’re life’s a disaster. In real life it’s often almost impossible to tell which decision is the one you should make because what you stand to gain and what you stand to lose are sometimes – often – neck and neck.”

— Marian Keyes

71. “Nothing sinister. Just getting exercise. Although some might consider that sinister.”

— Marian Keyes

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

— Marian Keyes

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

— Marian Keyes

74. “Her world had shrunk – no matter who she was with, she’d prefer to be with him. That’s what happened when you fell in love – you only want to see them.”

— Marian Keyes

75. “Here’s how it is: I feel guilty about every single bite of food that goes into my mouth.”

— Marian Keyes

76. “My mother is the best storyteller. And her mother was too.”

— Marian Keyes

77. “I should have learned mindfulness, and it’s too late now because it’s no good learning it when you’re already in crisis: you have to start when things are good. But only the very, very oddest would think, Hey, my life is perfect. I know! I’ll sit and waste twenty minutes Observing My Thoughts without Judgement.”

— Marian Keyes

78. “I still get awful depression. It’s who I am.”

— Marian Keyes

79. “Where’s that guy with the coffee?’ ‘I’m here.’ Mannix had appeared. ‘You went to Costa Rica for the beans?”

— Marian Keyes

80. “I suppose I wanted to have my cake and eat it. But then again, what were you going to do with your cake if not eat it? Frame it? Use it as a sachet in your underwear drawer?”

— Marian Keyes

81. “The thing about personal growth, I’ve discovered, is that you rarely get any choice in it. It only ever happens as a side-effect of some loss or trauma.”

— Marian Keyes

82. “I knew then that life was no respecter of circumstance. The force that flings disasters at us doesn’t say ” Well, I won’t give her that lump in her breast for another year. Best to let her recover from the death of her mother first.” It just goes right on ahead and does whatever it feels like, whenever it feels like it.”

— Marian Keyes

83. “I couldn’t stand to be alone. But there was no one that I wanted to be with. And no matter where I was, I wanted to be somewhere else. No matter who I was with, no matter what I was doing, no matter where I was, it was wrong, I didn’t want it. Every night, I sat with crowds of people and I felt totally alone.”

— Marian Keyes

84. “Do I mind being called a chick-lit writer? Well, it’s not the worst thing that could happen.”

— Marian Keyes

85. “I don’t like this idea of division: that if you’re a clever woman then you’ve got to be a particular way. Because men don’t. Men please themselves.”

— Marian Keyes

86. “I think denial’s fascinating. It’s a jokey word, but it really happens, and sometimes in enormous ways.”

— Marian Keyes

87. “That’s the thing with relationships, I understood: it doesn’t mean we don’t hurt one another; how can we help it sometimes, we’re only human. But if you love someone, you get hurt and you manage to forgive. And be forgiven.”

— Marian Keyes

88. “Show me a person who doesn’t have a past and I’ll show you a boring bastard.”

— Marian Keyes

89. “Some people can make their ears move – it’s their party trick. Don’t feel bad if you can’t do it. Just find yourself another party trick.”

— Marian Keyes

90. “I’d rather eat nothing than eat a carrot.”

— Marian Keyes

91. “There’s no doubt that relationships do suffer when circumstances change profoundly.”

— Marian Keyes

92. “In an unpredictable and unpleasant world it was both unusual and very pleasant to hear what I wanted to hear.”

— Marian Keyes

93. “They seem like a different race to me and I make sure never to get into disagreements with them, because any puny thing I say gets dashed on the rocks of their robust, shouty certainty.”

— Marian Keyes

94. “You know what it’s like. Sometimes, you meet a wonderful person, but it’s only for a brief instant. Maybe on vacation or on a train or maybe even in a bus line. And they touch your life for a moment, but in a special way. And instead of mourning because they can’t be with you for longer, or because you don’t get the chance to know them better, isn’t it better to be glad that you met them at all?”

— Marian Keyes

95. “Look at me, I believe in the craziest stuff and I have a really fun time.”

— Marian Keyes

96. “I don’t want to be dead. I’m curious about how things will turn out. This is good, right?”

— Marian Keyes

97. “I went grey at 12, my eyesight went at 17. I’ve been a crock from very early on.”

— Marian Keyes

98. “I’d always felt that there was only a finite amount of good fortune in the universe to go around.”

— Marian Keyes

99. “The ability to talk to other people seemed to be leaking out of me like air out of an old balloon.”

— Marian Keyes

100. “Before I knocked the antidepressant back, I had a little word with it. Work, I urged. Take away this awful, awful feeling.”

— Marian Keyes