Jamie O'Neill famous quotes

Did you not look upon the world this morning and imagine it as the boy might see it? And did you not recognize the mist and the dew and the birdsong as elements not of a place or a time but of a spirit? And did you not envy the boy his spirit? For you know there can be no power over him who freely gives what another would take. Such a one has the capacity to love. Freely, naively, to say I do.
-- Jamie O'Neill

#Morning #Boys #Capacity To Love

It was true what Jim said, this wasn’t the end but the beginning. But the wars would end one day and Jim would come then, to the island they would share. One day surely the wars would end, and Jim would come home, if only to lie broken in MacMurrough’s arms, he would come to his island home. And MacMurrough would have it built for him, brick by brick, washed by the rain and the reckless sea. In the living stream they’d swim a season. For maybe it was true that no man is an island: but he believed that two very well might be.
-- Jamie O'Neill

#War #Lying #Rain

If you carry the weather with you, then character is determined by the prevailing wind
-- Jamie O'Neill

#Character #Wind #Weather

I’m just thinking that would be pleasant. To be reading, say, out of a book, and you to come up and touch me – my neck, say, or my knee – and I’d carry on reading, I might let a smile, no more, wouldn’t lose my place on the page. It would be pleasant to come to that. We’d come so close, do you see, that I wouldn’t be surprised out of myself every time you touched.
-- Jamie O'Neill

#Book #Reading #Thinking

The four cautions: Beware a woman in front of you, beware a horse behind of you, beware a cart beside of you, and beware a priest every which way.
-- Jamie O'Neill

#Horse #Four #Way

It was far too absurd to die of a Tuesday
-- Jamie O'Neill

#Tuesday #Absurd #Dies

The people shall further be graded according to wealth, and—humorous touch this—the more obviously a man labor, the more stinting shall be his reward; the more he work in the out-of-doors, the thinner his clothing shall be; the more his labor filthy him, the less water shall he have to wash
-- Jamie O'Neill

#Humorous #Men #Doors

He slept that night thinking of loves and lighthouses. That one love might shine to bring all loves home.
-- Jamie O'Neill

#Love #Home #Night

I’m just thinking that would be pleasant. To be reading, say, out of a book, and you to come up and touch me – my neck, say, or my knee – and I’d carry on reading, I might let a smile, no more, wouldn’t lose my place on the page. It would be pleasant to come to that. We’d come so close, do you see, that I wouldn’t be surprised out of myself every time you touched.
-- Jamie O'Neill

#Book #Reading #Thinking

A little group of thatched cottages in the middle of the village had an orchard attached; and I remember well the peculiar purity of the blue sky seen through the white clusters of apple blossom in spring. I remember being moonstruck looking at it one morning early on my way to school. It meant something for me; what, I couldn't say. It gave me such an unease at heart, some reaching out towards perfection such as impels men into religion, some sense of the transcendence of things, of the fragility of our hold on life.

Once upon a time, when men and women hurtled through the air on metal wings, when they wore webbed feet and walked on the bottom of the sea, learning the speech of whales and the songs of the dolphins, when pearly-fleshed and jewelled apparitions of Texan herdsmen and houris shimmered in the dusk on Nicaraguan hillsides, when folk in Norway and Tasmania in dead of winter could dream of fresh strawberries, dates, guavas and passion fruits and find them spread next morning on their tables, there was a woman who was largely irrelevant, and therefore happy.

As for herself, every morning on waking she gives thanks to the God she doesn't disbelieve in. Although she can't credit him with saving her, she needs this outlet for her gratitude.

Every morning I wake up and thank God.

I spent every night until four in the morning on my dissertation, until I came to the point when I could not write another word, not even the next letter. I went to bed. Eight o'clock the next morning I was up writing again.

Sawyer was always the Vincent boy worth fighting for. He's the special one.

Was it possible I'd labeled him incorrectly? Shallow jocksdidn't overcome adversity and accomplish the things Leif had. I'd labeled him, not even knowing him. Just because girls went gaga over him andevery boy wanted to be him didn't make him a jerk. The only jerk in the room happened to be the judgmental, elitist female. Me.

I don't think it's fair - you get married, you give your wife a wedding ring. I think you should give her a mood ring. Oh, it may sound crass, but just check the color when you come home. 'Hi honey. Infernal red? Oh boy, I ain't getting laid, and I gotta cut the lawn, I know it.'

My children inspire me with their innocence and enormous capacity to love.

Your capacity to love is your capacity to experience the I of another.