I believe I am becoming pathetic. I'll go further, I believe that I am in love with a flower-growing, wood-carving quarry man/carpenter/pig farmer. In fact, I know I am. Perhaps tomorrow I will become entirely miserable at the thought that he doesn't love me back - may, even, care for Remy- but at this precise moment I am succumbing to euphoria. My head and stomach feel quite odd.

— Mary Ann Shaffer

I did not throw 'The Shepherd Boy Sings in the Valley of Humiliation' at the audience. I threw it at the elocution mistress. Furthermore, I meant to cast it at her feet, but I missed.

— Mary Ann Shaffer

I did not want to spend my time reading about people who never were, doing things they never did.

— Mary Ann Shaffer

I don't know as much about children as I would like to. I am godmother to a wonderful three-year-old boy named Dominic, the son of my friend Sophie. They live in Scotland, near Ban, and I don't get to see him often. I am always astonished, when I do, at his increasing personhood - no sooner had I gotten used to carrying about a warm lump of baby that he stopped being one started scurrying around on his own. I missed six months, and lo and behold, he learned how to talk! Now he talks to himself, which I find terribly endearing since I do, too.

— Mary Ann Shaffer

I don’t much care for people—never have, never will. I got my reasons. Furthermore, I never met a man half so true as a dog. Treat a dog right, and he’ll treat you right—he’ll keep you company, be your friend, never ask you no questions. Cats is different, but I never held that against them.

— Mary Ann Shaffer

I don't want to be married just to be married. I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with.

— Mary Ann Shaffer

I have gone to [this bookshop] for years, always finding the one book I wanted - and then three more I hadn’t known I wanted.

— Mary Ann Shaffer

I kept trying to explain, and he kept shouting until I began to cry from frustration. Then he felt remorseful, which was so unlike him and endearing that I almost changed my mind and said yes. But then I imagined a lifetime of having to cry to get him to be kind, and I went back to no again.

— Mary Ann Shaffer

I never met a man half so true as a dog. Treat a dog right, and he'll treat you right. He'll keep you company, be your friend, and never ask you no questions. Cats is different, but I never held that against 'em.

— Mary Ann Shaffer

I think you learn more if you're laughing at the same time.

— Mary Ann Shaffer