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Quotations
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"The gimmick in a short story is no more than the consequence of all the false steps the author has already taken." The Lonely Voice: A Study Of The Short Story Cleveland: World 1962
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...and the birds and the bloody stars were all far away, and I was somehow very small and very lonely. And anything that ever happened to me after I never felt the same about again. "Guests Of The Nation", Guests Of The Nation London: Macmillan 1931
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Two tramps sat by the roadside. One was tall and thin, and in the ash coloured twilight one might have seen that he had a long face with a drooping moustache. The other was a small man who looked fat; but that was only because he was swathed in coats, one more ragged than the next. He must have been wearing four or five in all. He had a rugged black beard that jutted out all over his face. His black hat was pasted perfectly flat over his scattered black locks that streamed about his shoulders, inside and outside the coats. Even in daylight all you could see of his person would be two beady black eyes, very bright, a stub of a nose no bigger than the butt of a cigar, and, when he moved his hands, the tips of his dirty fingers which were otherwise lost to view. 'Man,' he was saying in a high sing-song voice, 'is an animal. An animal must live. Therefore man must live. That's a syllogism; if you don't agree with it you must contradict the major or the minor or say the conclusion doesn't follow. But a man is made in the image of God and he must try and live decent. Only you, Horgan, you son of a bitch, you're worse than an animal. An animal bites because 'tis his nature to, but you bite because you likes it. Horgan,' he said, spitting, 'you're neither a man nor an animal. Why do you hang around me?' "May Night", The Cornet Player Who Betrayed Ireland Dublin: Poolbeg 1981
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O'Connor is doing for Ireland what Chekhov did for Russia. W B Yeats
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stories
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