Joseph O'Neill Quotes - BrainyQuote

Irish - Novelist Born: 1964

It used to be the case that for an Irishman to come to the U.S. involved a perilous journey on a ship. It involved singing lots of songs before you left saying goodbye, and once you were in the U.S., it involved singing lots of songs about how you were never going to set foot in Ireland again.

Journey You Singing Goodbye

One of the great pluses of being an immigrant is you get to start again in terms of your identity. You get to shed the narratives which cling to you.

You Great Identity Start

Novel-writing is a bit like deception. You lie as little as you possibly can. That's the way I do it, anyway.

You Lie Way Like

I have been to Turkey almost every summer holiday of my life and pretty much only on summer holidays, which makes me a very shallow Turk indeed.

Life Me Holiday My Life

You want a novel to tap as directly as possible into your most unspeakable preoccupations. And in America, in particular, cricket is pretty unspeakable.

You Cricket America Your

I certainly want to continue to write in a way that's intimate. I love books where you feel you're having a romance with the writer.

Love You Feel Way

I'm completely cricketed out. If I never have to write another word about cricket again, I'll be a happy man.

Man Cricket Happy Never

I think you sense the metaphorical resonance of what you're writing without analysing it too carefully. That leads you down dead ends. You stop imagining things and start writing towards these themes.

You Think Writing Down

I think if you're writing about cricket, you're obviously writing about power, because cricket is such a loaded sport, much more so than soccer.

You Power Cricket Think

There may well be writers who roll up their sleeves and say, 'I'm going to write a post-9/11 novel' but I wasn't one of those.

Say Who Well Going

I love books where you feel you're having a romance with the writer.

Love You Feel Books

I certainly want to continue to write in a way that's intimate.

Way Want Write Continue

If I never have to write another word about cricket again, I'll be a happy man.

Man Cricket Happy Never

It takes a long, long time to write what I do write.

Time Long Long Time Write

I went to an international school in Holland, and I didn't have any memories of growing up in the United States or England or any of these places which other novelists are able to write about in relation to their childhoods.

Memories School Growing Up Places

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