Quotes from Heather O'Neill

If we all knew that we were all perverts, we might be a lot happier.

All life began underneath the ocean. So I'm giving people a taste of what existence might have been like before civilization.' 'But we were amoebas and tiny shrimplike creatures. We didn't start off in deep-sea-diving outfits.' 'We all come into this world with an oxygen tube in our belly button.' 'True.' She put her hands up to her own belly. There had so recently been a sea creature evolving in there, trying its best to get its act together. It had perished under the deep, deep, deep sea.

Whenever things were going well, I started to feel vain.

What city doesn't like to brag about itself? The gargoyle fauns leaned off the front of the buildings, whispering about their sex lives. The fat catfish in the greenhouse swore they had stock market tips. The horses on the carousel reared their heads, ready for a battle against the mermaid statues in the pond. An electric train rode around and around a tiny mountain in the toy-shop window, while its Lilliputian passengers dreamed in tiny berths.

A beige cat came down the stairs like caramel seeping out of a Caramilk bar.

There was a scent called Five Minutes Before It Rains. If you put it on your neck, whoever kissed you would cry.

Her words squiggled onto the page like the laces of a girl running for her life with untied boots.

As a kid, you have nothing to do with the way the world is run; you just have to hurry to catch up with it.

In Moscow there were a hundred different words for sadness, and one of them was joy.

The home is the most ritualized place in a society; each house is like a religious order with its own ceremonies.

We confused the indoors with intimacy and electric heating with connection. Every night seemed like the last night because we would all freeze to death shortly.

There are things that are permissible in sex that aren't permissible elsewhere. You can smack each other and tie one another up and pee on them and strangle them. That's when love shows its face. When love takes off its clothes and has a drink. It sometimes takes the most appalling forms. It made the night seem like it was going to last forever.

Poor people knew that all good times had to be paid for.

The cat looked at its paws and frantically back at its body, as if it had just been transformed into a cat and couldn't accept it.

The soft sound of the rain on the rooftop sounded like young girls sneaking off in stockings to elope. She felt lonesome for Pierrot.

the violent delight of female desire.

as sad things can also have other sides, miraculous ones. If you don't feel sadness, there are types of happiness and compassion and torture and insight you will never know. Sadness has all sorts of truths that allow you to experience joy.

She didn't know what it meant to always want to be close to someone. She wanted to have the same experiences as him. She wanted to hit him and have a bruise appear on her body.

BUT ALTHOUGH he was paying for her whole life, McMahon still wasn't sure whether he truly possessed her. To make certain that he did, he tried to make Rose miserable. This was the only real proof that a woman belonged to you. Anybody could make a girl happy. It was only when a girl was in love with a man that he could ruin her self-esteem. He knew he would have to get around to that. He only had her for now.

Why had this good-looking moll chosen this effeminate buffoon, they all wanted to know. But Jimmy understood why immediately. Because he allowed her to be free.

What the hell is that? he asked. Magic mushrooms. I've always wanted to try those, he exclaimed. They sound so cute.

He said that when you are in love with someone, you want to follow them to the bathroom. He said love just makes you pathetic.

They don't know. It's not their fault. What are they supposed to do when they've been told their whole lives not to believe in fairy tales?

She certainly seemed crazy. But she simultaneously made them think that there was nothing in the world wrong with being a crazy girl. And that maybe the world needed a couple more crazy girls.