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

- Joseph O'Neill

New York interposed itself, once and for all, between me and all other places of origin.

- Joseph O'Neill

The greater the novel, the more it is apt to embody the special, non-replicable properties of the written medium.

- 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 unspeakab…

- Joseph O'Neill

I was just a boy on a boat in the universe.

- Joseph O'Neill

If what you want to do is write, then it's madness not to do it.

- Joseph O'Neill

Perhaps the relevant truth is that we all find ourselves in temporal currents and that unless you're paying attention you'll discover, often too late…

- Joseph O'Neill

Who has the courage to set right those misperceptions that bring us love?

- Joseph O'Neill

Publication is almost certainly a punishment for having written a book.

- Joseph O'Neill