Create Yours

Top 25 Molly Keane Quotes (2025 Update)

Molly Keane Quote: “Once I was looking through the kitchen window at dusk and I saw an old woman looking in. Suddenly the light changed and I realized that the old woman was myself. you see, it all happens on the outside; inside one doesn’t change.”

1. “Once I was looking through the kitchen window at dusk and I saw an old woman looking in. Suddenly the light changed and I realized that the old woman was myself. you see, it all happens on the outside; inside one doesn’t change.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Yes, we’ll have to put a stop to this bookworming. No future in that.”

2. “Yes, we’ll have to put a stop to this bookworming. No future in that.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “I stood about, smiling, compressed, submerged in politeness; aching in my isolation; longing to be alone; to be away; to be tomorrow’s person.”

3. “I stood about, smiling, compressed, submerged in politeness; aching in my isolation; longing to be alone; to be away; to be tomorrow’s person.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Certainty fell away from me as though a loved person dropped my hand in indifference.”

4. “Certainty fell away from me as though a loved person dropped my hand in indifference.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Food is a constant flashpoint between mother and daughter. Aroon.”

5. “Food is a constant flashpoint between mother and daughter. Aroon.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “In the winter months he was shooting or hunting, and in the spring there was salmon fishing – all undertaken and excelled in more as a career and a duty than as the pleasures of a leisured life. In the summer months there was a horse, sometimes horses, to be got ready for the Dublin Show, often evening fishing, and always the supervision of haymaking and harvest with their attendant ghastly weather to worry him. So luncheon.”

6. “In the winter months he was shooting or hunting, and in the spring there was salmon fishing – all undertaken and excelled in more as a career and a duty than as the pleasures of a leisured life. In the summer months there was a horse, sometimes horses, to be got ready for the Dublin Show, often evening fishing, and always the supervision of haymaking and harvest with their attendant ghastly weather to worry him. So luncheon.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Aroon is always on the outside looking in, always the unwanted hanger-on, the gooseberry.”

7. “Aroon is always on the outside looking in, always the unwanted hanger-on, the gooseberry.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “She said in an interview with Polly Devlin in 1983 that the pseudonym was essential because, ’for a woman to read a book, let alone write one, was viewed with alarm; I would have been banned from every respectable house.”

8. “She said in an interview with Polly Devlin in 1983 that the pseudonym was essential because, ’for a woman to read a book, let alone write one, was viewed with alarm; I would have been banned from every respectable house.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Dinnertime was a formal, nearly a sacred, hour – usually more like two hours. At half past seven they went upstairs to bathe and change into dinner jacket and teagown.”

9. “Dinnertime was a formal, nearly a sacred, hour – usually more like two hours. At half past seven they went upstairs to bathe and change into dinner jacket and teagown.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “The Anglo-Irish occupied a strange position in 1920s Ireland, the time in which the book is set. A breed apart, poverty-stricken yet proud, they were struggling to keep their niche in a changing country.”

10. “The Anglo-Irish occupied a strange position in 1920s Ireland, the time in which the book is set. A breed apart, poverty-stricken yet proud, they were struggling to keep their niche in a changing country.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Those wide shoulders and swinging hips were once parts of a winged quality she had –.”

11. “Those wide shoulders and swinging hips were once parts of a winged quality she had –.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Another thing those kind nuns had done was to teach him to say ‘the toilet’ when he meant the po or the lavatory, which was a vulgarity no one seemed able to straighten out.”

12. “Another thing those kind nuns had done was to teach him to say ‘the toilet’ when he meant the po or the lavatory, which was a vulgarity no one seemed able to straighten out.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Exhausted, bored, and disgusted by nannies, she engaged a governess who would begin my education and at the same time keep an eye on the nursery maid who was to be in charge of Hubert’s more menial four-year-old necessities.”

13. “Exhausted, bored, and disgusted by nannies, she engaged a governess who would begin my education and at the same time keep an eye on the nursery maid who was to be in charge of Hubert’s more menial four-year-old necessities.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Anyhow, what could be more delicious and delicate than a baby rabbit?”

14. “Anyhow, what could be more delicious and delicate than a baby rabbit?”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Now, shut up, old boy,’ the Captain said kindly, as he put down his leather-covered malacca stick.”

15. “Now, shut up, old boy,’ the Captain said kindly, as he put down his leather-covered malacca stick.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Even Master Hubert’s first with his first gun.”

16. “Even Master Hubert’s first with his first gun.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “She writes better than anyone else about the mother–daughter relationship, in all its thorny, fraught, inescapable complexity.”

17. “She writes better than anyone else about the mother–daughter relationship, in all its thorny, fraught, inescapable complexity.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “She was opening the window as high as the sash would go – that’s one of their superstitions, something to do with letting the spirit go freely. They do it.”

18. “She was opening the window as high as the sash would go – that’s one of their superstitions, something to do with letting the spirit go freely. They do it.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Our water supply was meagre and my grandfather had deflected a considerable quantity of it to a pond on which, in the shelter of a grove of rhododendrons, he loved to row himself about. It was his escape from the land agent.”

19. “Our water supply was meagre and my grandfather had deflected a considerable quantity of it to a pond on which, in the shelter of a grove of rhododendrons, he loved to row himself about. It was his escape from the land agent.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Good behaviour’ at the start means keeping oneself upright and benign in the face of adversity. By the end it has become a byword for enacting cruelty and revenge on your nearest relatives, all, of course, with the utmost subtlety and discretion.”

20. “Good behaviour’ at the start means keeping oneself upright and benign in the face of adversity. By the end it has become a byword for enacting cruelty and revenge on your nearest relatives, all, of course, with the utmost subtlety and discretion.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “He picked poor Hubert out of his cot and took off his sleeping suit before he wrapped him up in a hot bath towel from the airing.”

21. “He picked poor Hubert out of his cot and took off his sleeping suit before he wrapped him up in a hot bath towel from the airing.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “A pity for herself that she was so withdrawn a character. Recluse would be a truer word to describe her.”

22. “A pity for herself that she was so withdrawn a character. Recluse would be a truer word to describe her.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “When we were children the food in the nursery was quite poisonously disgusting. None of the fruit juice and vitamins of today for us – oranges only at Christmastime and porridge every morning, variable porridge slung together by the kitchen maid, followed by white bread and butter and Golden Syrup. Boiled eggs were for Sundays and sausages for birthdays.”

23. “When we were children the food in the nursery was quite poisonously disgusting. None of the fruit juice and vitamins of today for us – oranges only at Christmastime and porridge every morning, variable porridge slung together by the kitchen maid, followed by white bread and butter and Golden Syrup. Boiled eggs were for Sundays and sausages for birthdays.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Boys are beaten for reading poetry, grocers are called ‘robbers’ for sending in their bills, dogs are fed chicken while the servants are forced to eat laundry starch to stave off hunger, terrified children are put on horses at a remarkably young age, a nanny is dismissed for drunkenness but still given a good reference because to do otherwise ‘would have been unkind and unnecessary’. The proper way to conduct oneself in all matters is to employ selective silence: Papa.”

24. “Boys are beaten for reading poetry, grocers are called ‘robbers’ for sending in their bills, dogs are fed chicken while the servants are forced to eat laundry starch to stave off hunger, terrified children are put on horses at a remarkably young age, a nanny is dismissed for drunkenness but still given a good reference because to do otherwise ‘would have been unkind and unnecessary’. The proper way to conduct oneself in all matters is to employ selective silence: Papa.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “The nursery maid is pouring paraffin on a sulky nursery fire.”

25. “The nursery maid is pouring paraffin on a sulky nursery fire.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Especially when she thought it was chicken.”

26. “Especially when she thought it was chicken.”

— Molly Keane

Molly Keane Quote: “Sholto’s hairbrush?”

27. “Sholto’s hairbrush?”

— Molly Keane

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Steve Jobs Quotes

Steve Jobs Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS APPLE

Inspirational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

COURAGE MOTIVATIONAL STRENGTH

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

LIFE SPIRITUALITY

Save image...
Permalink
Open in new tab
Copy quote text

Beautiful Wallpapers and Images

We hope you enjoyed our collection of 25 Molly Keane Quotes.

All the images on this page were created with QuoteFancy Studio.

Use QuoteFancy Studio to create high-quality images for your desktop backgrounds, blog posts, presentations, social media, videos, posters, and more.

Thank you!

Please check your email.