O'hagan Quotes & Sayings

I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-wisp. — L. Frank Baum

My solo travels in Paris have brought many perfect hours of being alone but not a moment of loneliness. People who depend on other people are often in hiding from themselves. Two and a quarter million people live in the City of Light: you will see many of them and you will pass them in the street, but when you see Notre Dame after dark and walk home and perhaps stop to have a drink in the Marais, you can feel that the only thing that is missing from your experience is the common dependence on someone to distract your attention. You are living without it: you are on vacation. — Andrew O'Hagan

Emotional abuse is the sustained, reptitive, inappropriate, emotional responses to the child's felt emotions and their accompanying expressive behaviour. Emotional abuse impedes emotional development. In babies, it also impedes the onset of speech development. It retards the process through which a child acquires the ability to feel and express different emotions appropriately, and eventually, to regulate and control them. It impacts adversely on (a) the child's eductional, social, and cultural development; (b) psychological development; (c) relationships in adulthood; and (d) career prospects. — Kieran O'Hagan

More than food and shelter, the disabled crave love and compassion. They need to feel wanted. There is an Indian saying, "Not wealth, not food, but a little genuine comforting oomph can breathe life into a dead person." Caring and comforting love can heal the soul. It takes unconditional love to offer such comfort and care. — Bhupendra O. Khatri

But, Mummy, couldn't God make another wars, but bad people."
"Oh!" I said.
I was disappointed about that. I began to think that God wasn't quite what he was cracked up to be. — Frank O'Connor

Scott, if your life had a face, I would punch it. I would punch your life in the face. — Bryan Lee O'Malley

We now live in the era of fake consensus, or phoney populism, a condition in which galleries and homes are seen to succeed best where they manage feelings of non-difference. — Andrew O'Hagan

The idea that people in novels should be more sympathetic than people in life simply baffles me. — Andrew O'Hagan

The earth will never be the same again
Rock, water, tree, iron, share this greif
As distant stars participate in the pain.
A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf,
A dolphin death, O this particular loss
A Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried
If this small one was tossed away as dross,
The very galaxies would have lied.
How shall we sing our love's song now
In this strange land where all are born to die?
Each tree and leaf and star show how
The universe is part of this one cry,
Every life is noted and is cherished,
and nothing loved is ever lost or perished. — Madeleine L'Engle

You heard me, only Friend whom I love. To ravish my heart, you became man. You shed your blood, what a supreme mystery! ... And you still live for me on the Altar. If I cannot see the brilliance of your Face Or hear your sweet voice, O my God, I can live by your grace, I can rest on your Sacred Heart! — Therese Of Lisieux

When I was very young, I thought the theatre was a place where higher beings went about their celestial business, as if they knew nothing of ordinary life and its political mysteries. — Andrew O'Hagan

I would like to be where Diana Rigg or Judi Dench is, but I expect it is as good as it is going to get. — Kate O'Mara

Habit is a strong invisible prison. — John O'Donohue

Mrs. O' Leary is my pet. I couldn't let you stick a sword in her rump, now, could I? That might've scared her. — Rick Riordan

Given that most movies are bad, and that there are whole categories and sub-categories of badness - the sequel, the Madonna Movie, the Friday 13th Series, or Movies Starring John Travolta Before Pulp Fiction - it is almost impossible to choose a single film for worst movie of all time. But strangely, I do have a nomination and I believe it is actually the worst movie ever made. It is Boxing Helena. The director is David Lynch's daughter, and the film comes with the almost insane-making faults that the family connection might imply. — Andrew O'Hagan

The only reason you will get hired is because the person hiring you believes you can help them solve their problem. Stop thinking you're "filling an opening;" you're not. You're actually solving a company's problem, and by solving their problem, they will solve yours. — Mayowa O Ajisafe

O love-why can't you leave me alone? Which is a rhetorical question meaning: for heaven's sake, don't. — Thomas Merton

Figure out the WHY you want it and turn it into a desire and then and obsession! — Darren D.O. Connell

I always knew I would come to London. I loved Glasgow, but it seemed filled with echoes of my parents' lives, and sometimes you just want a city of your own. — Andrew O'Hagan

I think I am becoming obsessive-compulsive. David Beckham apparently turns all the Diet Coke cans in his fridge to face the same way every morning, and I nerdily sharpen all the pencils in my pot before sitting down to work. — Andrew O'Hagan

Long before the arrival of reality TV - before speed cameras, before recording angels on buses and lampposts - I felt I was living in a country that already knew how to watch itself. It was journalism that held the responsibility for seeing who we were and noticing what we did. — Andrew O'Hagan

As an old creative industry full of cruelty and moral sense, British journalism once flourished on the imperative that people required the truth in order to survive. But people don't require that now. They want sensation and they want it for nothing. — Andrew O'Hagan

The first rule of travel is that you should always go with someone you love, which is why I travel alone. — Andrew O'Hagan

Writing a novel is an act of self-annihilation as much as self-discovery. You can kill whole appetites and flood whole depths while plumbing them, but if you are serious about it you also get to put something into the world that wasn't quite there before. — Andrew O'Hagan

Interviewing is not a democratic art. — Andrew O'Hagan

Every literary culture has among its first bearings the 'blether' of animals who seek to make sense of human existence. — Andrew O'Hagan

Long before I was a writer, when I was just a haphazard reader and a dreamer of stories, I learnt about an influential book by Harold Bloom. 'The Anxiety of Influence', published in 1973 when I was five years old, is taken up with the terrifying influence of poets on each other. — Andrew O'Hagan

Novelists are no more moral or certain than anybody else; we are ideologically adrift, and if we are any good then our writing will live in several places at once. That is both our curse and our charm. — Andrew O'Hagan

On the question - which is more important for a story-plot or character. "It's a bit like asking whether your need your left or right leg. Maybe you have a preference, maybe one is stronger (for you) but really, you need both." (on Facebook) — Jeanette O'Hagan

High culture isn't what it used to be. — Andrew O'Hagan

In Britain, the great hidden secret of talking animals and children's literature is how political it was in its bones, beneath the obvious cuteness. — Andrew O'Hagan

When I was growing up, there was a feeling in one's living room as much as in one's local gallery that a little elitism was good for the soul. — Andrew O'Hagan

The summer remembers nothing of the winter and nature is a kind of amnesia. — Andrew O'Hagan

Every time someone opens a book and begins to read, a synergy between the reader and the writer occurs across time and space. — Jeanette O'Hagan

You're just America-on-ice. — Andrew O'Hagan

I probably owe my political dismay to New Labour, but also my growing sense that the satirical shape of human affairs is international and historical, not glued to the tawdry ambitions of a team of politicians who represent nothing but themselves. — Andrew O'Hagan

The working class of England take their deracination completely for granted. Disenchantment is the happy code that informs every byway of the underclass: service jobs, celebrity dreams, Lotto wins, leisured poverty on pre-crunch credit cards, it's all there, part of the story of an English people whose grandparents never had it so good. — Andrew O'Hagan

Art you can flush down the loo means nothing to me, even were the loo to be selected by Marcel Duchamp — Andrew O'Hagan

Once upon a time, I thought that politics was the name we gave to our higher instincts. That was before Margaret Thatcher, who came to power when I was 11 years old. — Andrew O'Hagan

He knew nothing about policy and taxes or what makes a people, and now, God help him, he was like those kids who think their country is Google. 'You're just not going deep enough,' Luke said. 'Money has imploded. Religion has gone mad. Privacy is disappearing. The ice-cap is melting and children are starving to death. And you want to sing an old song about national togetherness. — Andrew O'Hagan

I've been asked which of the other arts novel-writing is most like, and I have come to believe it is acting. Of course, in terms of pattern it can be like music, in terms of structure it can be like painting, but the job to me is most like acting. — Andrew O'Hagan

'Reality' is a notion that journalists take for granted. — Andrew O'Hagan

Events in America show the extent to which democracy there is fuelled by populism - Barack Obama's victory is a manifestation not of Washington's need for change, but of America's. That is not how democracy works in England. — Andrew O'Hagan

I was 10 when I realised I couldn't stand football. I'd tried, obviously, before this - no one wants to give in to social pariah-hood without a fight. I had stood frozen on pitches, done some running about and shouted a lot, as though I cared. — Andrew O'Hagan

A good nationalism has to depend on a principle of the common people, on myths of a struggling commonality. — Andrew O'Hagan

It's not a crime not to know yourself. It's not a crime to send life away. It's just a shame. — Andrew O'Hagan

We sometimes forget that human invention can also be a subject of human invention: that might seem a modern notion, or a postmodern one, but novelists have taken time - sometimes time out from their realist fixations - to source and satirise the speech and power we rely on. — Andrew O'Hagan

I had always been literary, in the sense of loving poetry and discovering novels, but I found my voice, as they say, in an office full of elderly people who looked after blind ex-servicemen. — Andrew O'Hagan

Fans of football and fans of nationhood have a similar zeal. Read the fanzines: their contributors could find a needle-sized diss in a haystack of compliments, and their passions are fundamentalist. — Andrew O'Hagan

It is perhaps one of those imponderables of life that many people declare their dislike for poetry, yet it surrounds us in the lyrics of the songs and hymns we love, the catchy advertising jingles, in picture books, and remembered snippets from Shakespeare or remembered and much loved verses. " Jeanette O'Hagan 1 May 2017 — Jeanette O'Hagan

When I was growing up, my idea of a writer was someone like Sven Hassel, that mysterious Danish author who wrote thrillers about men clambering over walls and getting tangled in barbed wire. — Andrew O'Hagan

The working class of England today have no vision of society beyond the acquisitive - no version of themselves or their habits as anything other than transitional, on their way up or on their way out. The working class, at best, is a waiting room for people who aim to become middle class if possible. — Andrew O'Hagan

I wasn't like other boys. At any rate, I wasn't like my three elder brothers: they excelled at football and they were like other boys, going up to bed each night hugging annuals filled with stories about the glories of Pele and Danny McGrain. — Andrew O'Hagan

Traveling alone offers the chance to test the limits of what you think you know about yourself. — Andrew O'Hagan

Be near me when my light is low and be near me when my heart is sick... — Andrew O'Hagan

A living museum must surely see itself as a locus of argument. A breathing art institution is not a lockup but a moveable feast. — Andrew O'Hagan

Be near me. The world is rowdy and nothing is certain. Do not stray. None of us was meant to face the day and the night alone, though that is what we do and memory now is a place of fading togetherness. Be near me. True love is what God intends. — Andrew O'Hagan

The characters in 'Be Near Me' come from a genuine place, a Britain that is more than one country and more than one ideal. — Andrew O'Hagan

The question nowadays is not what makes government work. The question is how do we make it stop. — P. J. O'Rourke

For after all, what is there behind, except money? Money for the right kind of education, money for influential friends, money for leisure and peace of mind, money for trips to Italy. Money writes books, money sells them. Give me not righteousness, O lord, give me money, only money. — George Orwell

When Xena finished I just really wanted to work with Shakespeare's material. — Renee O'Connor

Weaned from all passing fancies, let my soul praise You, O God, Creator of all. You did not allow my soul to remain attached to corruptible things with the glue of love, attached to what my senses find pleasing. For things we are attached to go where they will, then they cease, leaving the lover torn with corrupted longings. — Augustine Of Hippo

Wait: His boyfriend? He was gay? The focus on the lens sharpened, and I could see it clearly now. Of course he was gay. Everyone could see that, except the chubby little lonely heart sitting at seven o'clock, drawing sparkly rainbows on the page with her glitter crayons. I was still beating myself up when the round robin arrived to me, and I sputtered along trying to assemble some phony epiphany with strong verbs, but tears dripped down my face.
The room fell into silence as people waited for me to explain. But what could I possibly say? That I had just discovered my future husband was gay? That I was going to live the rest of my life surrounded by nothing but empty lasagna pans and an overloved cat destined to die before me?
"I'm sorry," I finally said. "I was just reminded of something very painful." And I guess that wasn't a lie. — Sarah Hepola

When I retire, I'm going after his job. If I don't make sheriff, I'm going after his job. He's not that good. You can quote me on that. — Shaquille O'Neal

If we are to survive the Atomic Age, we must have something to live by, to live on, and to live for. We must stand aside from the world's conspiracy of fear and hate and grasp once more the great monosyllables of life: faith, hope and love. Men must live by these if they live at all under the crushing weight of history. — O. P. Kretzmann

It a heasy t'ing to live for de lightnin' crack hillumination of possession.
It heasy to hide in de dark o' faith, pretendin' dat anyt'in' dat skitter an' scuttle in de night is jus' bad himagination.
It a heasy t'in' jus' to stay where you at. Grow roots. Vegetate. Be a potato. — Dave McKean

A very bouncy Kyle woke Livia at some ridiculous o'clock on Friday morning.
"Wakey-wakey, you sloppy, old whore. It's time to do you up. You're going out tonight, so you don't get to dress in nursing home casual." Kyle ripped off Livia's covers. — Debra Anastasia

I created 'Dinner: Impossible' with a guy named Bryan O'Reilly and I shot the pilot as a 30 minute show and we sold it. — Robert Irvine

Be strong and of good courage; for you shall cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, to observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded you: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 8 This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it: for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success. 9 Have not I commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; Do not be terrified, neither be dismayed: for Yahweh your Elohim is with you wherever you go. — Elder Jacob O Meyer

O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

I would say that when I came into this chapter of my filmmaking career, starting with 'The Fighter,' there was this sense that you have to go from your instincts and you have to go from your gut, and you have to not hesitate and you have to not hedge. — David O. Russell

When I grew up in Ireland in the seventies there was no such thing as therapy ... I mean we didn't even have cappuccinos until 1998! So for me music was therapy, it was also the place where one could speak about himself, where he was allowed to speak about his traumatic experiences. — Sinead O'Connor

On Sunday night, my husband makes a five-course family dinner. — Soledad O'Brien

The most dangerous of devotions, in my opinion, is the one endemic to Christianity: I was not born to be of this world. With a second life waiting, suffering can be endured
especially in other people. The natural environment can be used up. Enemies of the faith can be savaged and suicidal martyrdom praised. — E. O. Wilson

How wretched are the minds of men, and how blind their understandings.
[Lat., O miseras hominum menteis! oh, pectora caeca!] — Lucretius

Human beings were made for music. Its thrill and rapture are picked up almost immediately by little children — Edward O. Wilson

I arise to day ... In the name of Silence / Womb of the Word, / In the name of Stillness / Home of Belonging, / In the name of the Solitude / of the Soul and the Earth — John O'Donohue

We think that it legitimizes the homosexual lifestyle. — Christine O'Donnell

True culture is in the mind, the mind," he said, and tapped his head, "the mind." "It's in the heart," she said, "and in how you do things and how you do things is because of who you are." "Nobody in the damn bus cares who you are." "I care who I am," she said icily. — Flannery O'Connor

Everybody has an idea of the kind of society they'd like to live in, and I would like to live in one where our senior politicians were spirited and original and possibly even good at what they do. — Andrew O'Hagan

You're doing great,' she said. 'You're in Birmingham .' Scullion wanted to say this was a contradiction in terms but he couldn't speak. — Andrew O'Hagan

I don't believe in the meteoric culture of anxiety, generally. Obviously, some people have it, some people are crippled by it, but most of the novelists I've ever known are in love with influence. They thrive on it. — Andrew O'Hagan

There's a horrible fallacy that exists in the popular discussion of fiction these days: the idea that a successful central character need be 'likeable' or 'sympathetic'. It is surely more important that they be human, no? More crucial that they breathe? — Andrew O'Hagan

But she was half in love with chaos... With all her yearning for the ordinary life, she was born to admire outsiders. You could see she felt enlarged by drama and trouble, by the electric pulse of things going wrong, and her vision of the easy life remained in most ways a recurring dream. — Andrew O'Hagan

Psychological abuse is.. the sustained, repetitive, inappropriate behavior which damages or substantially reduces the creative and developmental potential of crucially important mental faculties and mental processes of a child, including intelligence, memory, recognition, perception, attention, imagination, and moral development. — Kieran O'Hagan

A theatre is not a blank page for editorial, it is not a soapbox or a Tannoy system: it is a conscience that wakes with what is happening in the space, and wakes further still in response to what people are making of it. — Andrew O'Hagan

When you grow up by the sea, you spend a good deal of time looking at the horizon. You wonder what on Earth the waves might bring - and where the sea might deposit you - until one day you know you have lived between two places, the scene of arrival and the point of departure. — Andrew O'Hagan

It was beguiling to live in a country, Scotland, that didn't look enough like itself to be a location for its own movies ... I remember consulting a film book and discovering that Arthur Freed decided to shoot Brigadoon in Hollywood because nowhere in Scotland looked Scottish enough. — Andrew O'Hagan

We do not read to pass the time, but to inhabit time. — Andrew O'Hagan

As a writer I care about America, and care about its carelessness. — Andrew O'Hagan

When I look back at my childhood on the Ayrshire coast, I recall a basic devotion to the idea that human nature and national character are as unknowable as the weather's rationale. — Andrew O'Hagan

You'll find that no pride is greater than the pride that comes with being thick. Britain is filled with people who are really proud of their stupidity. — Andrew O'Hagan

Always trust strangers, it's the people you know that let you down. — Andrew O'Hagan

Like children all over the world, by the age of 10 I'd come to believe that most of the really humane creatures were not really human at all. — Andrew O'Hagan

I am. You sound hungover."
"It's Canada Day."
"So?"
"So, I'm in Canada."
"Why?"
"Because it's Canada Day! Come on, Garrett!"
Zane snorted. — Abigail Roux

No man is so old as to believe he cannot live one more year. — Sean O'Casey

It is highly likely that one of the two of them [ Donald Trump and Ted Cruz ] is going to be the nominee. This is a - look here, what is this - what this is really is a prescription for remaking the Republican Party. — Lawrence O'Donnell

He was bald-headed except for a little fringe of rust-colored hair and his face was nearly the same color as the unpaved roads and washed like them with ruts and gullys. — Flannery O'Connor

A silence, the brief Sabbath of an hour,
Reigns o'er the fields; the laborer sits within
His dwelling; he has left his steers awhile,
Unyoked, to bite the herbage, and his dog
Sleeps stretched beside the door-stone in the shade.
Now the gray marmot, with uplifted paws,
No more sits listening by his den, but steals
Abroad, in safety, to the clover-field,
And crops its juicy-blossoms. — William C. Bryant

Walking through each day without a clear guide, an accurate map, and a consistent light source is hazardous to your well-being. Fortunately, God's Word provides us with the tools and help that we need. — Stormie O'martian