Belfast Quotes

I mean Georgia, and also Belfast, aren’t the most stable places, politically, in the world. But the thing is, in both places, the people were just so kind and so warm and in Belfast so welcoming.

I started to watch ‘Play for Today’ and plays like ‘Cathy Come Home,’ and Kenneth Branagh’s ‘Billy’ trilogy in the 1980s, which took us into the world of the Belfast family. As a kid in Luton, how was I ever going to know that world otherwise?

From Tiger’s Bay in Belfast to the MGM in Vegas… it’s been some ride so far. And the best is still to come.

If I had stayed in Belfast, my life there wouldn’t have as easy as it was in Scotland. I see the strain on the people who stayed. Always worrying about the safety of their children.

My dad moved to London in his early 20s and didn’t really go back. So the irony is I’ve spent lots and lots of time in Ireland, but not with my dad. I’ve shot films in Belfast, where he’s from. And I’ve shot in Dun Laoghaire. Which is great. And I’ve shot in Dublin.

When I was growing up, Belfast City Hall was surrounded by security, and we had no access to it. But now, people come in and out of it all the time. On a nice day, office workers and students sit on the lawn outside and have lunch. It’s great to see how Northern Ireland has changed. To be part of that is fantastic.

There are certainly many British plays which go down far better with Dublin audiences than they would in Belfast.

My parents were Belfast Catholics.

My father was from Belfast; my mother was from Crossmolina. I grew up in Dublin.

Belfast has many advantages for the filmmakers, one of which is the existence of an airport right in the middle of the city.

When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration.

When we went to Belfast we saw some beautiful countryside and coastlines.

My mom’s half-Irish, and my dad’s half-Irish. We don’t know much about my mom’s side, but my dad’s mom came from Belfast and married my grandfather, who was from Wales.

People fell in love with Alex Higgins, a working-class fellow from the back streets of Belfast. That’s what brought the game alive.

I’ve got my roots in Northern Ireland – my biological father’s side of the family were from Belfast.

I really love it in Belfast. I always stay in the most bombed hotel, the Europa!

I went back to Belfast and started a club, the Maritime. No one had thought about doing a blues club, so I was the first.

I used to think being in the West would be incredible and then when I was nine my parents moved us to Belfast. I was initially amazed by little things – in toyshops you could actually play with the toys, the schools were more colourful and there were so many magazines everywhere.

I’m just a normal working class boy from Belfast.

I like to go out for dinner in Belfast with my friends, I like to work on the house. I like working on music.

I have so many happy memories of Belfast and the shows I played there.

He came to the States in 1963, I think with a view to making up with my mother, but that didn’t work. He came for three weeks, and drank his way all over Brooklyn. And went back… I went to his funeral in Belfast.

If Israel does not find the way to disengage from the Palestinians, its future might resemble the experience of Belfast or Bosnia – two communities bleeding each other to death for generations.

I’ve never read anything set in Belfast that doesn’t involve the Troubles or something senseless over a flag.

All you would hear every night on the news was that somebody had been shot dead in a certain part of Belfast. We lived opposite a judge, and there were always soldiers crouched down in our garden. We’d sit and talk to them, and I even used to sing to them!

I started singing in pubs and clubs around Belfast when I was 10. My dad is a musician, and he took me ’round; I impersonated Tina Turner and Shirley Bassey, and the crowd couldn’t believe what was coming out of this little girl.

My father longed for a better life for us, and when I was nine he got a job as a heart surgeon in Belfast. It was very bittersweet when we said goodbye to our relatives, and I remember crying my eyes out at the airport.

There are some discussions taking place in the United Arab Emirates about the prospects of a long-haul flight into Belfast.

I love Belfast, because of the way that people here love their snooker. And I won my first professional tournament here in 1981. It was at the King’s Hall and I beat Doug Mountjoy in the final. That victory will always be pretty special for me.

I am on a mural in Belfast with ‘Floating up the Lagan in a bubble’ on it. You know you have made it when you have got a mural.

There was nothing special about me; there are boxers in Belfast who are more skilled but I had a bit between my teeth that drives me on.

Jason Momoa became a really good friend of ours when he played Khal Drogo. We loved hanging out with Momoa, and suddenly we couldn’t bring him to Belfast anymore.

Well, I couldn’t speak English before I went to Belfast. So I learned English with a Northern Irish accent.

Belfast is great.

Alex Higgins was my hero, so to play in Belfast, at the superb Waterfront Hall, is very special to me.