Owen Parry > Quotes

“Perhaps the Irish are so rich in the voice because twas the only thing the English could not take from them. It is why the Welsh sing.”
― Owen Parry, Faded Coat of Blue

“Cavalrymen and horses deserve each other.”
― Owen Parry, Faded Coat of Blue

“Yuengling’s”
― Owen Parry, Shadows of Glory

“Our gentlemen visitors ain’t allowed no more than a smile and a squeeze in the public rooms, for I won’t ’ave Sodom and Gomorrah under my roof. I always tell my girls, I tell them, ‘Ladies, just show the boys enough to give them a proper ’int of what they’re in for. And close your door be’ind you when you’re entertaining, for a gentleman is easily embarrassed.”
― Owen Parry, Bold Sons of Erin

“Perhaps that was what the war was really about. Twas an entire nation of runaways, America in 1861, and your place in society depended on what you had run from and when. Perhaps General McClellan was right that the war was not really about slavery. Perhaps it was a struggle between the dreams of men who would run no more.”
― Owen Parry, Faded Coat of Blue

“Now I do not mind a sweet, and do not think the eating of such unmanly. Is there more robustness in whisky and the gutter than in a golden pie, thick with the apples of Eden? And your German can bake a cake, too. I used to think chocolate a queer thing. But one does grow accustomed to the way it paints up a fine, three-layered cake. And who does not admire the gentle springing back of a fine cake under the fork, and the delight of it in the mouth, and the last lick of frosting on the lips? I would say that a well-wrought cake makes children of us all, but my own youth was never as sweet as this. Yet, I must not favor the cake unfairly. That pie would not be slighted, with its apples soft as clotted cream in the mouth and a crackling crust to tame the wanton sugar. I had two pieces of each to show my appreciation.”
― Owen Parry, Shadows of Glory

“just as I told Kathleen that very first day when I seen ’er, all looking fresh and pert as the flowers in May . . . I said to ’er, ‘One at a time and easy does it, and wash up proper after.’ Dr. Carr keeps telling them, but it’s a battle to get them to listen, and the careless ones pay the price.” Mrs. Walker had chatted herself into a disheartened state. “It’s rare to meet a proper young lady these days. Though Kathleen Boland could ’ave passed for a princess. Until she opened that shanty-Irish mouth of ’er’s.” I”
― Owen Parry, Bold Sons of Erin

“He longed for joy, even if it belonged to others and was no more than a reflected happiness.”
― Owen Parry, Our Simple Gifts: Civil War Christmas Tales

“Even if their magic is of the flesh? I cannot say if there are spells and curses, but I have known enchantment in my life.”
― Owen Parry, Bold Sons of Erin