O Connell Quotes

He swallowed hard, annoyed at the sudden dryness in his throat. No reason to become all emotional about it now. He had already sold his soul for a chance at vengeance, and there was no getting it back. ~ G.S. Jennsen

Reed: "What's up?"
Vanessa: "There must be an accident or something."
Reed: "I'm the accident."
Vanessa: "I couldn't agree more."
Reed: "What I meant was, those people out there are waiting for me. ~ Jenny O'Connell

But rarely do you ever tell people about the true depths of your loneliness, about how you feel more and more alienated from your friends each passing day and you're not sure how to fix it. It seems like everyone is just better at living than you are. ~ Ryan O'Connell

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

She spent a great deal of time staring into space, oppressed by the sense that she was waiting. But waiting for what? She did not know. Surely someone would call, someone must be needing her. Yet each day proceeded like the one before. Nothing intense, nothing desperate, ever happened. Time did not move. The home, the city, the nation, and life itself were eternal; still she had a foreboding that one day, without warning and without pity, all the dear, important things would be destroyed. ~ Evan S. Connell

Sometimes the books most restrained about sex, even deeply scandalized by it, can whisper to us with the greatest hidden force. I am a huge admirer of the recently deceased, always underranked Evan S. Connell. ~ Allan Gurganus

I like you so much, Marianne said. Connell felt a pleasurable sorrow come over him, which brought him close to tears. Moments of emotional pain arrived like this, meaningless or at least indecipherable. Marianne lived a drastically free life, he could see that. He was trapped by various considerations. He cared what people thought of him. He even cared what Marianne thought, that was obvious now. ~ Sally Rooney

Lily had to admit, she liked the way Connell McCormick peeked at her over the rims of his spectacles. From his corner spot of the deserted dining room, behind his stacks of books, he pretended to work. But she could feel his gaze upon her, tickling her, making her insides flutter. There was something about his intense green eyes and his attempts to hide his obvious fascination with her that warmed her and made her feel womanly in a way she hadn't experienced before. ~ Jody Hedlund

Only through becoming aware of yourself and your limitations can you be transparent with others. ~ Joanie Connell

Captain Jack, that volatile Modoc, seems to have been handled still more causally. After being hanged and buried, Jack was exhumed, embalmed, and exhibited at carnivals: admission ten cents. How many instances of such sensibility one chooses to catalogue may be limited by the amount of time spent turning over musty pages. During the seventeenth century, Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle, came upon a wood plank near the ruins of Ft. Crèvecoeur deep in the wilderness of the New World, upon which a French deserter had printed: NOUS SOMMES TOUS SAUVAGES ~ Evan S. Connell

Compared to other generations, millennials tend to be more collaborative, are accustomed to working in teams & have a passion for pressure. ~ Joanie Connell

One night the library started closing just as he reached the passage in Emma when it seems like Mr Knightley is going to marry Harriet, and he had to close the book and walk home in a state of strange emotional agitation. He's amused at himself, getting wrapped up in the drama of novels like that. It feels intellectually unserious to concern himself with fictional people marrying one another. But there it is: literature moves him. One of his professors calls it 'the pleasure of being touched by great art'. In those words it almost sounds sexual. And in a way, the feeling provoked in Connell when Mr Knightley kisses Emma's hand is not completely asexual, though its relation to sexuality is indirect. It suggests to Connell that the same imagination he uses as a reader is necessary to understand real people also, and to be intimate with them. ~ Sally Rooney

You shouldn't be visiting the saloons by yourself," Connell said. She pulled off her knit cap. "I didn't hear you volunteering to come with me earlier." "If I'd known you were going to march around to all the saloons, I would have offered to tag along." Her curly hair tumbled down around her face and framed eyes that widened. "I have a hard time believing you'd tag along with anyone." "Next time try me." She hesitated and her eyes flickered as if she wanted to believe him but couldn't. "For your information, I've been searching the dregs all winter, and I've been taking care of myself just fine." Connell shook his head. "You're just asking for trouble." "I'm not afraid of trouble." "I can see that." He liked her spunk and her bravery. ~ Jody Hedlund

I notice you have the assault proof vest -
So it's my fault I guess.
So apparently I didn't say 'no' as loud as my clothes could say 'yes.'
You see I didn't know that my 'no' wasn't enough -
I didn't understand that my body became less precious
because certain dresses
make me look hot.
And I guess if I'm wearing the wrong top
then my 'yes' is the same as 'stop.'
And you shouldn't have to, just because I begged you to.
I'm begging you -
Tell me the magic outfit and I'll buy it.
Apparently my 'no' wasn't heard,
even when I screamed.
So I need my clothes to be quiet. ~ Connell, Steve

Life is a mixture of experiences - some sweet and some bitter. The Bible abounds in examples and stories of people, and it tells us that without faith we can never please God. We must learn how to trust Him, and trust is developed in private, but it's always shown up in difficult experiences we have in life. So difficulties are an opportunity for us to grow because they reveal our heart condition. ~ Mike Connell

But it is easy to call a man in love a mad man. ~ Brendan Connell

Connell was laughing at nothing, just because so much excitement demanded some kind of outward expression and he didn't want to cry. ~ Sally Rooney

some people go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all it may contain; and ~ Evan S. Connell

Minds are like beds. They can be made and unmade. ~ Adam Connell

All Connell's classmates have identical accents and carry the same size MacBook under their arms. In seminars they express their opinions passionately and conduct impromptu debates. Unable to form such straightforward views or express them with any force, Connell initially felt a sense of crushing inferiority to his fellow students, as if he had upgraded himself accidentally to an intellectual level far above his own, where he had to strain to make sense of the most basic premises. He did gradually start to wonder why all their classroom discussions were so abstract and lacking in textual detail, and eventually he realized that most people were not actually doing the reading. They were coming into college every day to have heated debate about books they had no read. He understand now that his classmates are not like him. It's easy for them to have opinions, and to express them with confidence. They don't worry about appearing ignorant or conceited. They are not stupid people, but they're not so much smarter than him either. They just move through the world in a different way, and he'll probably never really understand them, and he knows they will never understand him, or even try. ~ Sally Rooney

The years were falling over like ducks in a shooting gallery, and it seemed to Mr. Bridge that he had scarcely taken aim at one when it disappeared. ~ Evan S. Connell

Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the commas back in the same places. I like that way of working on something. I respect that kind of care for what is being done. That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they an best say what they are meant to say. If the words are heavy with the writer's own unbridled emotions, or if they are imprecise and inaccurate for some other reason
if the worlds are in any way blurred
the reader's eyes will slide right over them and nothing will be achieved. Henry James called this sort of hapless writing 'weak specification'. ~ Raymond Carver

Marianne expressed her feelings about Connell mainly in terms of her sustained interest in his opinions and beliefs, the curiosity she feels about his life, and her instinct to survey his thoughts whenever she feels conflicted about anything. ~ Sally Rooney

She was not certain what she wanted from life, or what to expect from it, for she had seen so little of it, but she was sure that in some way - because she willed it to be so - her wants and her expectations were the same.
For a while after their marriage she was in such demand that it was not unpleasant when he fell asleep. Presently, however, he began sleeping all night, and it was then she awoke more frequently, and looked into the darkness, wondering about the nature of men, doubtful of the future, until at last there came a night when she shook her husband awake and spoke of her own desire. Affably he placed one of his long white arms around her waist; she turned to him then, contentedly, expectantly, and secure. However, nothing else occurred, and in a few minutes he had gone back to sleep.
This was the night Mrs. Bridge concluded that while marriage might be an equitable affair, love itself was not. ~ Evan S. Connell

The world is made up of two classes - the hunters and the huntees. ~ Richard Connell

Lately he's consumed by a sense that he is in fact two separate people, and soon he will have to choose which person to be on a full-time basis, and leave the other person behind. He has a life in Carricklea, he has friends. If he went to college in Galway he could stay with the same social group, really, and live the life he has always planned on, getting a good degree, having a nice girlfriend. People would say he had done well for himself. On the other hand, he could go to Trinity like Marianne. Life would be different then. He would start going to dinner parties and having conversations about the Greek bailout. He could fuck some weird-looking girls who turn out to be bisexual. I've read The Golden Notebook, he could tell them. It's true, he has read it. After that he would never come back to Carricklea, he would go somewhere else, London, or Barcelona. People would not necessarily think he had done well; some people might think he had gone very bad, while others would forget about him entirely. What would Lorraine think? She would want him to be happy, and not care what others said. But the old Connell, the one all his friends know, that person would be dead in a way, or worse, buried alive, and screaming under the earth. (26-27) ~ Sally Rooney

Keep writing and fighting. ~ Adam Connell

It wasn't the first time he'd had the urge to tell Marianne that he loved her, whether or not it was true, but it was the first time he'd given in and said it. He noticed how long it took her to say anything in response, and how her pause had bothered him, as if she might not say it back, and when she did say it he felt better, but maybe that meant nothing. Connell wished he knew how other people conducted their private lives, so that he could copy from example. ~ Sally Rooney

Connell doesn't read the campus papers much, but he has still managed to hear about the debating society inviting a neo-Nazi to give a speech. It's all over social media. There was even an article in The Irish Times. Connell hasn't commented on any of the Facebook threads, but has liked several comments calling for the invite to be rescinded, which is probably the most strident political action he has ever taken in his life. ~ Sally Rooney

MySchool not OurSchools. In the basic logic of policy, there is now no difference between Labor and Liberal/National parties. The unchallenged assumption of national and state policy is that whatever problem exists, market logic can fix it. ~ Raewyn W. Connell

He often makes blithe remarks about things he 'wishes'. I wish you didn't have to go, he says when she's leaving, or: I wish you could stay the night. If he really wished any of those things, Marianne knows, then they would happen. Connell always gets what he wants, and then feels sorry for himself when what he wants doesn't make him happy. ~ Sally Rooney

Technical expertise is only a tiny portion of what it takes to be a successful employee and, particularly, a successful leader. ~ Joanie Connell

Her first name was India-she was never able to get used to it. ~ Evan S. Connell

One thing they do not teach you in college is what you will actually be doing in a career of your choosing. ~ Joanie Connell

Still, Connell went home that night and read over some notes he had been making for a new story, and he felt the old beat of pleasure in his body, like watching a perfect goal, like the rustling movement of light through leaves, a phrase of music from the window of a passing car. Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything. ~ Sally Rooney

Sometimes I think evil is a tangible thing - with wave lengths, just as sound and light have. ~ Richard Connell