Love and freedom are such hideous words. So many cruelties have been done in their name. — Joseph O'Connor Copy Share Image
It is not a matter of ends justifying means: but of the creation of new means and new ends. — Joseph O'Connor Copy Share Image
“The English possessed as many words for stealing as the Irish had for seaweed or guilt.” — Joseph O'Connor Copy Share Image
“That each man is the sum of his choices is nothing less than the truth. And each, perhaps, is also something else.” — Joseph O'Connor Copy Share Image
“...but as his father used to say when he had a few drinks taken, you couldn't expect bloody miracles when you were talking about… — Joseph O'Connor Copy Share Image
The most important thing I would learn in school was that almost everything I would learn in school would be utterly useless. When I was fifteen I knew the principal industries of the Ruhr Valley, the underlying causes of World War One and what Peig Sayers had for her dinner every day...What I wanted to know when I was fifteen… — Joseph O'Connor Copy Share
“They had far more in common than either realised. One was born Catholic, the other Protestant. One was born Irish, the other British. But… — Joseph O'Connor Copy Share Image
Dublin was turning into Disneyland with super-pubs, a Purgatory open till five in the morning. — Joseph O'Connor Copy Share Image
(The short story) is a form that has all the power of the novel - some would say more - but none of the… — Joseph O'Connor Copy Share Image
“And if ever you wanted to quit your impatient girl truly, and our little story had to be stored away in a room that's only sometimes remembered, that's still a room I'd want, and I'd go there now and again, like some room in an old hotel on a seafront someplace where two sinners did something they shouldn't. Do you… — Joseph O'Connor Copy Share
I feel these days like a very large flamingo. No matter what way I turn, there is always a very large bill. — Joseph O'Connor Copy Share Image
