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“Cats are not adoring like dogs. They don’t care. They can never be relied upon to shore up a human ego. They go their way, do their thing, are not subservient and will never apologise. No one has ever come across a cat apologising and if a cat did, it would patently be obvious it was not being sincere.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“The truth was dawning on me of how terrifying it was not to be numb, but to be aware, to have facts, retain facts, be adult.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“The day Somebody McSomebody put a gun to my breast and called me a cat and threatened to shoot me was the same day the milkman died.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“Still,' he said. 'Ach,' I said. 'Ach nothing,' he said. 'Ach sure,' I said. 'Ach sure what?' he said. 'Ach sure, if that's how you feel.' 'Ach sure, of course that's how I feel.' 'Ach all right then.' 'Ach,' he said. 'Ach,' I said. 'Ach,' he said. 'Ach,' I said. 'Ach.'

So that was settled.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“According to the police, of course, our community was a rogue community. It was we who were the enemy, we who were the terrorists, the civilian terrorists, the associates of terrorists or simply individuals suspected of being but not yet discovered to be terrorists. That being the case, and understood by both parties to be the case, the only time you’d call the police in my area would be if you were going to shoot them, and naturally they would know this and so wouldn’t come.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“... I didn't officially live with him and wasn't officially committed to him. If we were in a proper relationship and I did live with him and was officially committed to him, the first thing I would have to do would be to leave.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“So yes, keep the lid on, buy old books, read old books, seriously consider those scrolls and clay tablets.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“So shiny was bad and 'too sad' was bad, and 'too joyous' was bad, which meant you had to go around not being anything; also nit thinking, least not at the top level, which was why everybody kept their private thoughts safe and sound in those recesses underneath.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“also found the situation unworkable. Not just unworkable â€� ridiculous. Not just ridiculous â€� perturbing.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“Not that she could see, but it was unmistakable not to hear what he looked like.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“People always said you'd better be careful. Though how, when things are out of your hands, when things were never really in your hands, when things are stacked against you, does a person - the little person down here on the earth - be that?”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“That relative, that temporal plane -- where sensitivities vary, where no one has the same personal history even if they have the same communal history, where something which is a trigger for one person passes off unnoticed by another person -- definitely was the place where the raw living of life and the imperfect mental response to that raw living took place.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“It broke the bounds of credibility, said the news, but lots of things in life break bounds of credibility. Breaking credibility, I was coming to understand, seemed to be what life was about.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“He’d homed in on that flag issue, the flags-and-emblems issue, instinctive and emotional because flags were invented to be instinctive and emotional â€� often pathologically, narcissistically emotional â€� and he meant that flag of the country from ‘over the waterâ€� which was also the same flag of the community from ‘over the roadâ€�. It was not a flag greatly welcomed in our community. Not a flag at all welcomed in our community”
― Anna Burns, Milkman