J.P. Donleavy > Quotes

“Writing is turning life's worst moments into money.”
― J.P. Donleavy

“Electronic books are a bad thing because they cannot be accumulated on shelves to remind you of your past, to impress your neighbors and colleagues, and to help prevent divorces thanks to the sheer bother of arguing over who owns what.”
― J.P. Donleavy

“Revenge is what I want. Nothing but pure unadulterated revenge. But my mother brought me up to be a lady.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms: The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to Be Rumoured About Around New York

“Dear Mr Skully,

I have caught my neck in a mangle and will be indisposed for eternity.

Yours in death
S.D.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

“When I'm dead, I hope it may be said: his sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”
― J.P. Donleavy

“Take deeds
Away.
Play music
please.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

“You know, there must be happiness somewhere, when a lawyer dies.”
― J.P. Donleavy, A Fairy Tale of New York

“But Jesus, when you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both it's health, you worry about getting rupture or something. If everything is simply jake then you're frightened of death.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

“Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.”
― J.P. Donleavy

“Writing: Turning one's worst moments into profit.”
― J.P. Donleavy

“I'm starved for love. Not ordinary love but real love. The love that's like music or something.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

“See all the women seated, youth in their face lifts, old age in their hands.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms: The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to Be Rumoured About Around New York

“And Mary, what of other men? There are no other men because my heart has gone out to you. And if you don't laugh I'll tell you what i think. I won't laugh. I think it's a fine instrument that God made for the poor likes of us to enjoy.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

“The sun of Sunday morning up out of the sleepless sea from black Liverpool. Sitting on the rocks over the water with a jug of coffee. Down there along the harbor pier, trippers in bright colors. Sails moving out to sea. Young couples climbing the Balscaddoon Road to the top of Kilrock to search out grass and lie between the furze. A cold green sea breaking whitely along the granite coast. A day on which all things are born, like uncovered stars.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

“I wish I were a Russian. It's so exciting.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

“The only slight disconcertance being that in the middle of looking at a paintings [in the Museum of Modern Art] she always found herself desperately needing to take a pee. And grandmother's voice in her ear.

'My dear, if you really have to, only clean, very clean rest rooms will do.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms: The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to Be Rumoured About Around New York

“Lawyers, ah yes, they have courage. But only when it is time to send the bill.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

“Come here till I tell you. Where is the sea high and the winds soft and moist and warm, sometimes stained with sun, with peace so wild for wishing where all is told and telling.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

“How when one is able to indulge the luxury of beginning one's life again.

All one thinks
To do
Is end it”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms: The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to Be Rumoured About Around New York

“Some day you’ll show up when I’m back where I belong in this world. When I have what I ought to have. My due. And when you do. My gamekeepers will drive you out and away for good. Out. Away. Out.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

“Not using that handy maxim a man is what he makes his dough at and alas how much. Sometimes it is a gentle gesture to remind people of their big time possibilities. Makes them like you.”
― J.P. Donleavy, A Singular Man

“She thought too that women didn't know what to do with themselves these days which could turn them into harridans. Hardly a female friend she knew wasn't miserable. Either mind dumb with children, or in the married condition married to an earnest toiler, or lonely unmarried in their successful career.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms: The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to Be Rumoured About Around New York

“The purpose of writing is to make your mother and father drop dead with shame.”
― J.P. Donleavy

“There was a girl who strung me along for two years till I found out what a fraud American womanhood was”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

“If there's a sickness in America, it's the lack of materialism.”
― J.P. Donleavy

“... With a slight miscalculated leap cleared to the iron picket fence. Put the fear of God into me, picket fences and balls don't mix.”
― J. P. Donleavy

“Who is that man with mommie. These are lawyers. What are lawyers. They are men who look things up in big books.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

“Sleep thy last sleep, Free from care and sorrow. Rest where none weep. And we too, shall follow.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

“In all cases the old is better than the new except where the new is much better.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Unexpurgated Code

“Miss Frost, sometimes I feel fifty three. Seldom, but at times, I feel twenty. Like the days. Ever feel a Saturday on a Tuesday? Or a week of one Friday after another? Recently I've been seventy. But I remember thirty four as a fine age.”
― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man