Colleen McCullough Quotes

Quotes about:

• My fictitious characters will take the bit between their teeth and gallop off and do something that I hadn't counted on. However, I always insist on dragging them back to the straight and narrow

  Colleen McCullough

  Character, Teeth, Bits

  48 Copy quote

• There are no ambitions noble enough to justify breaking someone's heart.

  Colleen McCullough

  Love, Heart, Ambition

  25 Copy quote

• There's a story... a legend, about a bird that sings just once in its life. From the moment it leaves its nest, it searches for a thorn tree... and never rests until it's found one. And then it sings... more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. And singing, it impales itself on the longest, sharpest thorn. But, as it dies, it rises above its own agony, to outsing the lark and the nightingale. The thorn bird pays its life for just one song, but the whole world stills to listen, and God in his heaven smiles.

  Colleen McCullough

  Smile, God, Song

  "Fictional character: Ralph de Bricassart". "There are no ambitions noble", www.imdb.com. 1983.

  29 Copy quote

• Each of us has something within us which won't be denied, even if it makes us scream aloud to die. We are what we are, that's all. Like the old Celtic legend of the bird with the thorn in its breast, singing its heart out and dying. Because it has to, its self-knowledge can't affect or change the outcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it's the most wonderful song the world has ever heard. Don't you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer the pain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it.

  Colleen McCullough

  Song, Pain, Heart

  Colleen McCullough (1977). “The Thorn Birds”

  29 Copy quote

• The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.

  Colleen McCullough

  Law, Bird, Singing

  Colleen McCullough (2013). “The Thorn Birds”, p.610, Head of Zeus

  21 Copy quote

• I hate being on my best behavior. It brings out the absolute worst in me.

  Colleen McCullough

  Hate, Behavior, Worst

  "The Thorn Birds". Book by Colleen McCullough, 1977.

  20 Copy quote

• Perfection, in anything, is unbearably dull. Myself, I prefer a touch of imperfection.

  Colleen McCullough

  Perfection, Imperfection, Dull

  9 Copy quote

• Belief doesn't rest on proof or existence...it rests on faith...without faith there is nothing.

  Colleen McCullough

  Belief, Proof, Existence

  12 Copy quote

• Love and hate are cruel, only liking is kind

  Colleen McCullough

  Hate, Love And Hate, Kind

  Colleen McCullough (2014). “Masters of Rome Collection Books I - V: First Man in Rome, The Grass Crown, Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar”, p.3919, Head of Zeus

  11 Copy quote

• If you love people, they kill you. If you need people, they kill you. They do I tell you!

  Colleen McCullough

  People, Needs, Ifs

  Colleen McCullough (2013). “The Thorn Birds”, p.484, Head of Zeus

  22 Copy quote

• It's a dead give away of an inexperienced writer if every character speaks with the same voice

  Colleen McCullough

  Character, Voice, Giving

  5 Copy quote

• That's the purpose of old age... To give us a breathing space before we die, in which to see why we did what we did.

  Colleen McCullough

  Breathing Space, Giving, Age

  Colleen McCullough (2013). “The Thorn Birds”, p.601, Head of Zeus

  11 Copy quote

• The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five-year-old men more.

  Colleen McCullough

  Birthday, Appreciation, Women

  "Write to the Heart : Wit & Wisdom Of Women Writers". Book by Amber Coverdale Sumrall, 1992.

  20 Copy quote

• Old age is an ordeal, of flesh and mind. Of winding down, of slowing down, of dying cells. It's accepting the loss of physical attractiveness and replacing it with the power and wisdom that can only come with old age.

  Colleen McCullough

  Wisdom, Loss, Cells

  11 Copy quote

• How frightening, that one person could mean so much, so many things.

  Colleen McCullough

  Mean, That One Person, Frightening

  Colleen McCullough (1977). “The Thorn Birds”

  7 Copy quote

• My husband says it is very good that I have very tiny feet, because they're easier to get in my mouth.

  Colleen McCullough

  Husband, Feet, Mouths

  7 Copy quote

• And gradually his memory slipped a little, as memories do, even those with so much love attached to them; as if there is an unconscious healing process within the mind which mends up in spite of our desperate determination never to forget.

  Colleen McCullough

  Determination, Memories, Healing

  Colleen McCullough (2013). “The Thorn Birds”, p.126, Head of Zeus

  13 Copy quote

• What was sleep? A blessing, a respite from life, an echo of death, a demanding nuisance?

  Colleen McCullough

  Sleep, Blessing, Echoes

  Colleen McCullough (2013). “The Thorn Birds”, p.365, Head of Zeus

  13 Copy quote

• We're working-class people, which means we don't get rich or have maids. Be content with what you are and what you have.

  Colleen McCullough

  Mean, Class, People

  Colleen McCullough (2013). “The Thorn Birds”, p.22, Head of Zeus

  4 Copy quote

• Best of all she liked his eyes, such a translucent golden brown, and so laughing.

  Colleen McCullough

  Eye, Laughing, Golden

  Colleen McCullough (2015). “The Ladies of Missalonghi”, p.42, Head of Zeus

  9 Copy quote

• I have an editor in my head, that's why I can't read Harry Potter, because Rowling is such a lousy writer.

  Colleen McCullough

  Editors, Potters, I Can

  9 Copy quote

• I think explicit love scenes are a turn off unless it's the kind you read with one hand.

  Colleen McCullough

  Thinking, Hands, Kind

  8 Copy quote

• My books and other works are my legacy, and it's a great comfort to know that mine is a legacy of pleasure for other people.

  Colleen McCullough

  Art, Book, People

  4 Copy quote

• ... the most insoluble problems are those which by their very nature can have no space within them for dreams.

  Colleen McCullough

  Dream, Space, Problem

  Colleen McCullough (2013). “Tim”, p.119, Head of Zeus

  4 Copy quote

• duty, the most indecent of all obsessions, was only another name for love.

  Colleen McCullough

  Names, Obsession, Duty

  Colleen McCullough (1999). “Three Complete Novels”, Wings

  9 Copy quote

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