Quotes from Heather O'Neill

The snowflakes came down like little bits of newspaper

The pawn dealer was always impressed by Pierrot's perspicuity when it came to selecting the paintings. He always plucked incredible works of art, the most valuable pieces in the collection.

C'est ce que fait Dieu, chaque nuit. That's what God has to do every night on an infinite scale. He invented the whole universe, and now he has to pay attention to it. Otherwise all the stars will go out one by one. We complain that he sometimes doesn't get around to the things we want him to, but look up at the sky! Always more spectacular, the people say. Always more spectacular... Les gens en veulent toujours plus.

He didn't want to read the newspaper or listen to the radio anymore. He didn't want to be a grown-up. There are some people who are just no good at it.

He lay on his back, floating in the large bath, his penis like a lily pad.

The only time the world shows you any favor, or cuts you any slack, is during that very brief period of courtship where the world is trying to fuck you for the first time.

He always had to act in an obnoxiously idiosyncratic way.

Many of the women were breastfeeding, as they wanted to make sure the children were silent while Mary was talking.

She felt jealousy pounding like enemy soldiers at the gate.

It showed her that a person's personality could change radically, that you could never really know someone. In fact, you could probably never know yourself. You could think of yourself as the most fun-loving, generous person but actually be cutthroat and indecent.

Whereas the Greeks had Zeus and Athena, we had people who still lived in Verdun. They had a lot to bear on their shoulders. They had to invent the whole world themselves. They were supposed to have supernatural powers and achieve sainthood. When really they just found themselves peering into the mirror above the bathroom sink, looking to see how they were aging. Sitting in the bathtub, smoking a cigarette, terrified of death like the rest of us.

didn't want this. They didn't want to populate this horrible land that was snow and rocks and skinny wolves. They spoke to their children through gritted teeth. That's where the Québec accent came from. The nation crawled out from between their legs.

my father encouraged me to enter medicine. He told me it was much nobler to worry about humans than about bugs. But you know, he was wrong. Because people are wicked. They are cheaters and liars and degenerates and drunks, and the science of medicine just keeps them alive so they can murder and commit even more sins. But I have yet to find anything about the workings of insects that has disappointed me.

We all struggle with contradictions. Contradictions are marvelous. If you don't believe that everything contains contradictions, then there is very little you can understand. We know ourselves by embracing what we are not. We become good by taking evil head-on.

If you can imagine something, then it is possible within the physical laws of this universe. So says some Greek philosopher.

But wasn't it better to have someone who was always gushing annoyingly about love than someone who was reserved with it?

That's because we're girls. We're supposed to only have emotions. We aren't even allowed to have thoughts. And it's fine to feel sad and happy and mad and in love—but those are just moods. Emotions can't get anything done. An emotion is just a reaction. You don't only want to be having reactions in this lifetime. You need to be having actions too, thoughtful actions.

When I open a book now, I was seized with desperation. I felt as if I was madly in love. It was as if I were in a confession booth and the characters in the book were on the other side telling me their most intimate secrets. When I read, I was a philosopher and it was up to me to figure out the meaning of things. Reading made me feel as if I were the center of the universe.

Well, my darling, you can be lazy when you're lying in your coffin. -Rose

Every day the average person will witness six miracles. But it isn't that we don't believe in miracles-we just don't believe that miracles are miriacles. There are so many miracles all around us.

Love was a paltry, meek thing; it was guilt that spoke in such operatic statements.

That was desire messing with physics: putting its finger on the record and then slowing it down, making sure you heard every word spoken, and memorized it.

Every day the average person will witness six miracles. But it isn't that we don't believe in miracles-we just don't believe that miracles are miracles. There are so many miracles all around us.

I became the man that I am in order to look down on people. That's why a doctor found a vaccine for smallpox, you know, not because he was interested in helping out all those sick people, but because he wanted to make all his doctor friends jealous.