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Joseph OConnor Quotes

Love and freedom are such hideous words. So many cruelties have been done in their name.

Love and freedom are such hideous words. So many cruelties have been done in their name.

Joseph O'Connor
Names, Done, Cruelty
Joseph O'Connor, Random House UK (2004). “Star of the Sea”, p.381, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

If you do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. If what you are doing is not working, do something else.

Joseph O'Connor
Work Out, Done, Entrepreneurship

Beliefs: Those things we hold to be true despite evidence to the contrary.

Joseph O'Connor
Learning, Knowledge, Belief
Joseph O'Connor, Ian McDermott (1997). “The Art of Systems Thinking: Essential Skills for Creativity and Problem Solving”, Thorsons Pub

It is not a matter of ends justifying means: but of the creation of new means and new ends.

Joseph O'Connor
Mean, Matter, Creation

Politics' the polite word for antediluvian prejudices, the rags put on by enmity and tribal resentment.

Joseph O'Connor
Rags, Prejudice, Enmity
Joseph O'Connor, Random House UK (2004). “Star of the Sea”, p.11, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

There is nothing worse than the ambitions of a talentless person.

Joseph O'Connor
Ambition, Persons

Dublin was turning into Disneyland with super-pubs, a Purgatory open till five in the morning.

Joseph O'Connor
Morning, Dublin, Pubs

I feel these days like a very large flamingo. No matter what way I turn, there is always a very large bill.

Joseph O'Connor
Business, Debt, Flamingos
Joseph O'Connor (1994). “The secret world of the Irish male”

Everything is in the way the material is composed.

Joseph O'Connor
Way, Materials

(The short story) is a form that has all the power of the novel - some would say more - but none of the self-importance.

Joseph O'Connor
Self, Stories, Form

The most important thing I would learn in school was that almost everything I would learn in school would be utterly useless. When I was fifteen I knew the principal industries of the Ruhr Valley, the underlying causes of World War One and what Peig Sayers had for her dinner every day...What I wanted to know when I was fifteen was the best way to chat up girls. That is what I still want to know.

Joseph O'Connor
Girl, War, School
Joseph O'Connor (1994). “The secret world of the Irish male”

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