The best way to reveal a character is to get them to open their mouths

 
“One day at a time, sweet Jesus. Whoever wrote that one hadn’t a clue. A day is a fuckin’ eternity”
― Roddy Doyle, Paula Spencer

“If there is a heaven, Jane Austen is sitting in a small room with Mother Teresa and Princess Diana, listening to Duran Duran, forever. If there's a hell, she's standing.”
― Roddy Doyle

“It was a sign of growing up, when the dark made no more difference to you than the day.”
― Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

“Fuck was the best word. The most dangerous word. You couldn't whisper it. Fuck was always too loud, too late to stop it, it burst in the air above you and fell slowly right over your head. There was total silence, nothing but Fuck floating down. For a few seconds you were dead, waiting for Henno to look up and see Fuck landing on top of you. They were thrilling seconds-when he didn't look up. It was a word you couldn't say anywhere. It wouldn't come out unless you pushed it. It made you feel caught and grabbed you the minute you said it. When it escaped it was like an electric laugh, a soundless gasp followed by the kind of laughing only forbidden things could make, an inside tickle that became a brilliant pain, bashing at your mouth to be let out. It was agony. We didn't waste it.”
― Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

“To claim that music is more important than oxygen would be trite and sentimental. It would also be true.”
― Roddy Doyle, Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Music and Life

“Dreaming was only nice while it lasted.”
― Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

“It’s the only thing sexier than a sexy woman. A sexy woman cooking fuckin’ sausages.”
― Roddy Doyle, Paula Spencer

“She'd tried her hand at most things, but drew the line at honesty.”
― Roddy Doyle, Yeats Is Dead!: A Mystery by 15 Irish Writers

“We parked our bikes on verges so they could graze.”
― Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

“She's a pot-of-tea-before-I-say-boo-to-you woman. There's always a pile of warm teabags in the sink when I come down, like what a horse would leave behind.”
― Roddy Doyle

“I remember I wanted to get away; I wanted to run. I couldn't stand any more. But I didn't want to run. I wanted everything to be perfect; everything was going to be great - I just had to be careful. I was responsible for it all. The clouds coming, I was dragging them towards us; my thoughts were doing it. I was ruining everything. It was up to me. I could control the whole day. All I had to do was make sure that I made no stupid mistakes. Don't walk on the cracks. Don't look at the clouds. It's up to you.”
― Roddy Doyle, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors

“Sometimes, when you were thinking about something, trying to understand it, it opened up in your head without you expecting it to, like it was a soft spongy light unfolding, and you understood, it made sense forever…”
― Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

“I swooned the first time I saw Charlo. I actually did. I didn't faint or fall on the floor but my legs went rubbery on me and I giggled. I suddenly knew that I had lungs because they were empty and collapsing.”
― Roddy Doyle, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors

“She’s happier than Nicola. That’s probably true. Alcoholics can stop drinking but what is there for the children of alcoholics? Is it always too late? Probably. She doesn’t know.”
― Roddy Doyle, Paula Spencer

“There were days when I didn't exist; he saw through me and walked around me. I was invisible. There were days when I liked not existing. I closed down, stopped thinking, stopped looking...There were days when I couldn't even feel pain. They were the best ones. I could see it happening. There was no ground under me, nothing to fall to. I was able to not care. I could float. I didn't exist”
― Roddy Doyle, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors

“If you were going to be best friends with anyone - Kevin - you had to hate a lot of other people, the two of you, together. It made you better friends.”
― Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

“I was the ref. I was the ref they didn’t know about. Deaf and dumb. Invisible as a wall. I wanted no one to win.”
― Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

“He loved me and he beat me. I loved him and I took it. It's as simple as that, and as stupid and complicated. It's terrible. It's like knowing someone you love is dead but not having the body to prove it. He loved me. I know it.”
― Roddy Doyle, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors

“Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's part of any endeavour, not just writing.”
― Roddy Doyle

“Do ghosts drink tea?

They don't, said Tansey. But this ghost would love to see a cup of tea in front of her. It'd be lovely.”
― Roddy Doyle, A Greyhound of a Girl

“Head in the book. Nose sliding down the valley between the pages.”
― Roddy Doyle, A Star Called Henry

“I live on an island called Ireland where most of the music is shite. I grew up listening to "Danny Boy"; I grew up hating Danny Boy, and all his siblings and his granny. "The pipes, the pipes are caw-haw-hawing." Anything with pipes or fiddles or even - forgive me, Paul - banjos, I detested. Songs of loss, of love, of going across the sea; songs of defiance and rebellion - I vomited on all of them.”
― Roddy Doyle, Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Music and Life

“It was frightening, though, how little time you got. You only became yourself when you were twenty-three or twenty-four. A few years later, you had an old man's chest hair. It wasn't worth it.”
― Roddy Doyle, Bullfighting: Stories

“-I love yeh, son, said Jimmy Sr.
He could say it and no one could hear him, except young Jimmy, because of the singing and roaring and breaking glasses.
-I think you’re fuckin’ great, said Jimmy Sr.
-Ah fuck off, will yeh, said Jimmy Jr. -Packie saved the fuckin’ penalty, not me.
But he liked what he’d heard, Jimmy Sr could tell that. He gave Jimmy Sr a dig in the stomach.
-You’re not a bad oul’ cunt yourself, he said.”
― Roddy Doyle, The Van

“The best way to reveal a character is to get them to open their mouths.”
― Roddy Doyle

“Contact J. Rabbitte, 118, Chestnut Ave., Dublin 21. Rednecks and southsiders need not apply.”
― Roddy Doyle, The Commitments

“Mary,' said her mother. 'We don't like sarcasm '
'You mightn't like it,' said Mary. 'But I love it.”
― Roddy Doyle

“I knew all the books in the house. I knew their shapes and smells. I knew what pages would open if I held them with the spine on the ground and let the sides drop. I knew all the books but I couldn't remember the name of the one on my head.”
― Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

“I cried, a bit, as a spoke to Belinda on my mobile phone, in a quiet corner, perhaps the only quiet corner in Jaipur. I told her how I'd hoped Paul would read the forward, that he'd read how much I admired his work and how much I admired him, how much I just plain liked him and loved him. But, even as I spoke, I knew: Paul had always known that. He'd seen in on my face every time we met. What made me cry was the obvious, stupid fact that we'd never meet again.”
― Roddy Doyle, Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Music and Life

“I jumped on Sinbad's bottle. Nothing happened. I didn't do it again. Sometimes when nothing happened it was really getting ready to happen.”
― Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha