Ronan O'Brien

“Experience has taught me that what you love, you should love all the harder because someday it will be gone.”

“I had not accounted for the fact that I had about as much control over my situation as a tennis ball does when a cat is toying with it. I was no more than a plaything of some unseen and immensely powerful otherworldly force that would not be denied its fun, and certainly not because of my pathetically ineffective countermeasures.”

“I ran into her a couple of times after that but she always turned her face away and never spoke to me again. She had a sort of stubborn dignity about her that made me respect her even more.”

“It's good to believe in things, love, just make sure the cat doesn't run out of lives; that's all I'm saying”

“She is in my heart and in my bones; she is in the very depths of my being. She is my overdose, my addiction so deep that it cannot be destroyed without killing the addict too. Her face was my sun and her eyes were my stars and she is in my thoughts every minute of every day. There are a million guys out there who would have given anything for a shot at bringing her happiness, so I hope that for the short time that we had together, I at least made her as happy as she made me. I loved her so much and I'll always love her.Till the end of the world and beyond.”

“Sometimes I did wonder though why Ashling was with me. On that one occasion when I asked her what she saw in me, she wouldn't give me a straight answer. When I pressed her on it, she said that if someone loves you then all you have to do is let them.”

“Gradually we learned each other's stories and secrets and we fell madly in love; the kind of love that some people probably find nauseating.”

“I usually give guys like tha twenty or fifty euros; whatever's in me wallet, ya know? But you've opened my eyes and so from now on, I think I'm gonna just take them out for a meal instead," I said"Really? Well how about if I dress up like a homeless person, will you take me out for a meal?" said Ashling and my heart started to beat a little bit faster because I knew that she wouldn't even be joking about that unless she wanted a second date with me.”

“In those early days of our relationship though, I always thought that she was so perfect that there had to be a catch. But there wasn't one. Five months and two days after our very first meeting, we were engaged and nine months after that we were married. And every day that I spent on this planet in the company of Ashling, I experienced the same sense of euphoria that I had tasted on our first date. I experienced something that in its simplest form can only be described as true love.”

“She looked me in the eye without saying anything. We both knew what was going to happen next. There would never be a better moment. I leaned over and kissed her on the lips and if we had have been actors in a movie, the camera would have panned upwards at that point to capture fireworks exploding in the sky. I didn't need any fireworks or orchestral symphonies to complete the moment though, because for me it was perfect exactly the way it was.”

“I remember looking behind me during that song and I could see a tide of eighty thousand people bouncing up and down in unison. The crowd had transmogrified into one heaving monster and the fact that I was a part of that really struck a chord within me. I couldn't remember the last time I had been a part of something.”

“Good work, Batman!”

“I read somewhere once that soulmates are simply two people who recognize the damage in each other but the truth is that there's a lot more to it than that. Sometimes, I used to joke with Ashling that we were like Elliot and E.T. because most of the time we thought the same thoughts and we felt the same emotions. Ashling would laugh and say that as long as she could be Elliot, she wouldn't argue with me.”

“I remember feeling dangerously close to blurting out something like 'I love you' and blowing the whole deal. But fortunately I didn't and the conversation flowed beautifully”