Heather O'Neill

“I decided to get my butt up out of the coffin, just like Jesus Christ, and come and chitchat with all my…

— Heather O'Neill

“Childhood is the most valuable thing that's taken away from you in life, if you think about it.”

— Heather O'Neill

The real first kiss is the one that tells you what it feels like to be an adult and doesn't let you…

— Heather O'Neill

“At dusk Pierrot found Rose sitting on a bench, facing the river. She was having morbid thoughts. She was descended from people…

— Heather O'Neill

“You can learn how to be an aristocrat by following a few rules in a very short book. There is nothing to…

— Heather O'Neill

If you want to get a child to love you, then you should just go hide in the closet for three or…

— Heather O'Neill

“Men were taught to have so much pride, to go out into the world and make something of themselves. This Depression was…

— Heather O'Neill

When you're a kid, if you watch 'The Jeffersons' with your family at seven o'clock, it seems like a natural phenomenon, like…

— Heather O'Neill

We were broke in a way that only kids can be broke. Our toes were black with dye from wearing boots that…

— Heather O'Neill

“Jules and I were tiny people. We were delicate. We were almost destroyed. We were vulnerable. Like nerds in a school yard…

— Heather O'Neill

“But having a young parent meant you had to pack up your stuff in an hour and run away from a twenty-two-year-old…

— Heather O'Neill

“You feel as if everybody has been given an instruction manual on how to be likable, but you didn’t get it. And…

— Heather O'Neill

Your superhuman power was to be able not to feel. Is it there inside everybody, this self that comes out while you…

— Heather O'Neill

“I don’t know why I was upset about not being an adult. It was right around the corner. Becoming a child again…

— Heather O'Neill

A lot of children grow up in poverty with flawed parents, but their inner world is still as inherently filled with wonder…

— Heather O'Neill

“She had fat arms, the type of arms that held sailors and soldiers and thieves. The kind of arms that held someone…

— Heather O'Neill

“A girl's desire is like a pretty butterfly. And a man's desire is like a butterfly net. His desire captures and kills…

— Heather O'Neill

“I went into the room and sat next to Linus on the bed. I put my hand on his shoulder. I was…

— Heather O'Neill

In Lullabies, I wanted to capture what I remembered of the drunken babbling of unfortunate twelve-year-olds: their illusions, their ludicrously bad choices,…

— Heather O'Neill

“Boys are good at personas. There are a certain number that you can get at the drugstore, like costumes before Halloween. Being…

— Heather O'Neill

“Intimacy makes you feel unique. Intimacy makes you feel as though you have been singled out, that someone in the world believes…

— Heather O'Neill

“I closed my eyes and the roof was gone. I could see the stars while the piano tinkled. I could see Jupiter…

— Heather O'Neill

“When I thought about my old friends Linus Lucas and Theo, I realized they were not really criminals either. They were like…

— Heather O'Neill