I had a ludicrous childhood, but I feel that I was able to profit from a lot of the idiotic and unfortunate things that happened to me by turning them into fiction. Heather O'Neill More Quotes by Heather O'Neill More Quotes From Heather O'Neill A lot of children grow up in poverty with flawed parents, but their inner world is still as inherently filled with wonder and innocence as children who are kept away from the city's underbelly. Heather O'Neill growing-up cities children On of the reasons that I wanted to study literature was because it exposed everything. Writers looked for secrets that had never been mined. Every writer has to invent their own magical language, in order to describe the indescribable. They might seem to be writing in French, English, or Spanish, but really they were writing in the language of butterflies, crows, and hanged men. Heather O'Neill butterfly writing men Love is a big and wonderful idea, but life is made up of small things. As a kid, you have nothing to do with the way the world is run; you just have to hurry to catch up with it. Heather O'Neill running love-is kids Suddenly I realized that I wanted everything to be as it was when I was younger. When you're young enough, you don't know that you live in a cheap lousy apartment. A cracked chair is nothing other than a chair. A dandelion growing out of a crack in the sidewalk outside your front door is a garden. You could believe that a song your parent was singing in the evening was the most tragic opera in the world. It never occurs to you when you are very young to need something other than what your parents have to offer you. Heather O'Neill garden song believe People give you a hard time about being a kid at twelve. They didn't want to give you Halloween candy anymore. They said things like, “If this were the Middle Ages, you'd be married and you'd own a farm with about a million chickens on it.” They were trying to kick you out of childhood. Once you were gone, there was no going back, so you had to hold on as long as you could. Heather O'Neill halloween hard-times kids We were broke in a way that only kids can be broke. Our toes were black with dye from wearing boots that weren't waterproof. We had infected ear lobes and green rings around our fingers from cheap jewelry. No one ever even had a chocolate bar. Heather O'Neill black chocolate kids Your superhuman power was to be able not to feel. Is it there inside everybody, this self that comes out while you are in captivity? You become the closest approximation of yourself that can tolerate living there. Heather O'Neill numbness able self Becoming a child again is what is impossible. That's what you have a legitimate reason to be upset over. Childhood is the most valuable thing that's taken away from you in life, if you think about it. Heather O'Neill taken children thinking You see only the beautiful things when you stand still. You only see things that you don't ordinarily notice. The birds are the prettiest things, I imagine. Heather O'Neill imagine beautiful bird Adolescents are still children in that they can't yet tell the difference between make believe and fiction. Heather O'Neill differences believe children My breath in the cold air was bleach that accidentally spilled on a black t-shirt. Heather O'Neill bleach black air Somewhere, a sparrow is singing in B minor. Heather O'Neill minors sparrows singing From the way that people have always talked about your heart being broken, it sort of seemed to be a one-time thing. Mine seemed to break all the time. Heather O'Neill broken heart people Sometimes when you are standing still and it’s snowing, you think that you hear music. You can’t tell where it’s coming from either. I wondered if we all really did have a soundtrack, but we just get so used to it that we can’t hear it anymore, the same way that we block out the sound of our own heartbeat. Heather O'Neill block snow thinking Adolescents are attracted to tragic heroes. That's why rock stars dress like homeless people. Adolescence is a fall. It's when every child becomes an orphan. Heather O'Neill stars children fall The stars are always up in the sky...then when it is perfectly black, they feel less vulnerable and out they come. Heather O'Neill black stars sky In the temporary illumination of the headlights, the insects were scribbling out messages from God that we couldn't get. Heather O'Neill insects illumination messages Lonely children probably wrote the Bible. Heather O'Neill lonely-child lonely children It never occurs to you when you are very young to need something other than what your parents have to offer you. Heather O'Neill dandelions parent needs The real first kiss is the one that tells you what it feels like to be an adult and doesn't let you be a child anymore. The first kiss is the one that you suffer the consequences of. It was as if I had been playing Russian roulette and finally got the cylinder with the bullet in it. Heather O'Neill real love children
