Graham Norton > Quotes

“The rooms weren't empty, they were filled with the absence of someone.”
― graham norton, A Keeper

“she needed to anchor herself to something or she might fly around the room screaming out her pain like a hysterical balloon.”
― Graham Norton, Holding

“Funerals see the end of a life but at the party afterwards, it is like a form of resurrection: the person we have just said goodbye to is back in the room as people share their tales. The”
― Graham Norton, The Life and Loves of a He Devil

“Life had taught them well. Feelings were to be feared, pain was to be avoided at all cost, and if that meant not experiencing joy, then so be it.”
― Graham Norton, Holding

“This is what homecoming meant. Arriving in a place to discover you’re fluent in a language you’d forgotten you ever knew.”
― Graham Norton, Home Stretch

“Always remember, if you decide to come to the showbiz party the dress code is ‘Thick Skin’. Our”
― Graham Norton, The Life and Loves of a He Devil

“Small, shiny and exquisite, she was like a Fabergéegg with tits. Although”
― Graham Norton, So Me

“I've always found there are far fewer answers than there are questions.”
― Graham Norton, A Keeper

“He remembered that it had been a warm evening in early September. He had made his way up past the school but was beginning to regret his route. The road was much steeper than he had imagined and he was getting quite short of breath and was coated in a slick of sweat that was making his clothes stick to him.”
― Graham Norton, Holding

“My point is that there is nothing tragic in me knowing that the best days of my life are behind me.”
― Graham Norton, Frankie

“Sometimes knowing where or when things went wrong didn’t mean you could fix them. It just meant you could beat yourself up over them more effectively.”
― Graham Norton, Forever Home

“At the house, Margaret was lying on the sofa. She was exhausted. Helen did not know why. Nobody got jet lag flying in from London.”
― Graham Norton, The Swimmer

“Duneen had somehow managed to slip through the World Wide Web. No 4G, no 3G, no signal.”
― Graham Norton, Holding

“Some marriages combust, others die, and some just lie down like a wounded animal, defeated.”
― Graham Norton, Holding

“sharp wings could have done a great deal”
― Graham Norton, The Life and Loves of a He Devil

“forcing his knuckles, ears and chin to protrude like knots on a tree. His”
― Graham Norton, Frankie

“People were different with children back then. You forget. We all forget. A good parent was one who managed to keep their child alive. Nobody wondered what their child was feeling. You were told how you felt.”
― Graham Norton, Frankie: A Decades-Sweeping Literary Love Story From Post-War Ireland to 1960s New York City

“You’ll find as you get older that often problems turn out to be their own solutions.”
― Graham Norton, Frankie: A Decades-Sweeping Literary Love Story From Post-War Ireland to 1960s New York City

“where Aunt Gillian kept her Waterford crystal, so special that it wasn’t used even for special occasions.”
― Graham Norton, A Keeper

“The dead don't vanish, they leave a negative of themselves stamped on the world.”
― Graham Norton, A Keeper

“Slán abhaile,”
― Graham Norton, Home Stretch

“They wore clothes they would never wear in the towns of their birth, ate food their mothers would never cook, had lovers who would never be taken home at Christmas. Family had been replaced by a tribe, and Connor flourished.”
― Graham Norton, Home Stretch

“I don’t want to be a prick about it but I’m Irish. I’m not a paddy. OK?”
― Graham Norton, Home Stretch

“When he stopped failing at trying to be the man he couldn't be, he found he was able to succeed in all sorts of other ways. People liked him, he was funny, he could earn good money.”
― Graham Norton, Home Stretch

“intuition”
― Graham Norton, Frankie

“he could see that he had hidden behind his size and used it as an excuse so he didn’t have to compete in all the trials of adolescence. No need to summon up the courage to ask a girl out on a date, because which of the Margarets or Fionas with their long pale necks and shiny hair would want his warm clammy hands holding them on the dance floor? The other boys tried to outdo each other”
― Graham Norton, Holding

“Living in London, it’s easy to forget that people can talk to each other. I walk my dogs around Wapping past hundreds of people on pavements and in parks and it is very rare a smile is exchanged or the silence broken. I occasionally get ‘Are you Graham Norton?’ ‘Love the show’ or a simple ‘Faggot!’ but for most people making their way through the capital, you soon learn that people generally only speak to you when they are (a) crazy, (b) want money, or (c) both. We quickly learn the rules and for the most part they work. In Ireland it is impossible to imagine not saying hello or commenting on the weather. When I first started going back home again, it would always take me a day or two to stop thinking everyone I met was trying to sell me something or explaining why they needed £2 to get the train. I know this is true of rural communities the world over, but talking seems to be something we in Ireland are especially gifted at. There are nights in the pub when my friends look on in slack-jawed incomprehension as someone opens their mouth and a torrent of words tumble free. Usually they don’t have anything to say. Their gate fell down. Who put it there. The man who fixed it. The general state of gates in the area. I will then remember an ‘interesting’ fact about my own gate. They will know the man who owned the forge where they made it. Are they a relation of the man who delivers the stuff? And so it goes. A seamless gush of phrases and banter as traditional as a sing-song or drink-driving. It is talking for the pure pleasure of it and not to communicate a single thing. It is the human equivalent of barking or birdsong.”
― Graham Norton, The Life and Loves of a He Devil

“The investigation had begun. ‘It might be nothing. Some of the lads said work on, but myself and the foreman thought somebody better have a look.’ ‘Right so, I’ll head on up. Will you sit in with me?’ ‘Oh thanks. I will”
― Graham Norton, Holding

“It was extraordinary to Ellen that something as unremarkable as a window with a different view could make the whole world seem so changed, but it was true.”
― Graham Norton, Home Stretch

“sugar-free daddy. A job seemed like quite a smart move.”
― Graham Norton, Home Stretch