Author

One of the great pluses of being an immigrant is you get to start again in terms of your identity. You get to shed the narratives which cling to you.

From Joseph O'Neill

It used to be the case that for an Irishman to come to the U.S. involved a perilous journey on a ship. It involved singing lots of songs before you left saying goodbye, and once you were in the U.S., it involved singing lots of songs about how you were never going to set foot in Ireland again.

From Joseph O'Neill

I think you sense the metaphorical resonance of what you're writing without analysing it too carefully. That leads you down dead ends. You stop imagining things and start writing towards these themes.

From Joseph O'Neill

Novel-writing is a bit like deception. You lie as little as you possibly can. That's the way I do it, anyway.

From Joseph O'Neill

I'm completely cricketed out. If I never have to write another word about cricket again, I'll be a happy man.

From Joseph O'Neill

I think if you're writing about cricket, you're obviously writing about power, because cricket is such a loaded sport, much more so than soccer.

From Joseph O'Neill

You want a novel to tap as directly as possible into your most unspeakable preoccupations. And in America, in particular, cricket is pretty unspeakable.

From Joseph O'Neill