Tony O'Neill > Quotes

“No more junk talk, no more lies. No more mornings in the hospital getting bad blood drained out of me. No more doctors trying to analyse what makes me a drug addict. No more futile attempts at trying to control my heroin use. No more defending myself when I know I am practically indefensible. No more police using me as practice. No more ODs, no more losses. No more trying to take an intellectual position on my heroin addiction when it takes more than it gives. No more dope-sick mornings, no more slow suicide, no more pain without end.
No more AA. No more NA. No more mind control. No more being a victim, no more looking for reasons in childhood, in God in anything but what exists in HERE. No more admitting I am powerless.
Down the dusty Los Angeles sidewalks, down the urine stained London back alleys … there goes the connection fading into the crowd like a 1960’s Polaroid.
“Business…?”
“Whachoo need…?”
“Chiva…?”
― Tony O'Neill, Digging the Vein

“I smile sadly, in light of what came next
to think that I told her
If you can just hang on, things are bound to improve

she made me a liar, too--
the woman who dug the hole
I've been trying to write myself out of
ever since”
― Tony O'Neill

“I needed to know that Death was here, in the room, and that I was too fast, too young, and too smart for him.”
― Tony O'Neill, Digging the Vein

“The great power of Tony O’Neill is obvious to anybody, but I hope people understand what a rare, extreme talent it takes to write at once so precise and beautiful, yet so imperiled by the damage of its own world.” —Dennis Cooper”
― Tony O'Neill, Down and Out on Murder Mile

“You know . . . I’m thinking that maybe we should be the ones to benefit from this motherfucker’s stupidity.” Trina looked up at Pat. “What, you mean . . . ?” “Let’s rob this faggot. Why not?”
― Tony O'Neill, Sick City

“become an embarrassing over-friendliness, followed by the urge to confess all of the darkness that was inside of him, to confide in strangers, to laugh loudly at banal bullshit. Then there would be a sustained period of self-loathing. This ugly phase would end only when he slept. Tomorrow he knew he would wake with a burning head and a sour belly and begin the frantic recriminations: reliving every stupid word, every phony smile until he could take it no more. He would be forced to either drink again, get high, or punch himself repeatedly in the face.”
― Tony O'Neill, Black Neon

“Slowly, I felt my mood begin to brighten. It was unperceivable at first, but as I noticed a pleasant sensation starting in the base of my skull, sending shivers of pleasure throughout my body, I”
― Tony O'Neill, Digging the Vein

“Our luck was still good. Sometimes a junkie and a whore can still make out in the Land of the Free.”
― Tony O'Neill, Dirty Hits: Stories 2003-2013

“It’s not very often that a writer’s words can punch through the paper and throttle the lifeblood out of you, but Tony’s words manage to do just that, his experiences are so powerful and emotional and full of fucking heart that it pales everybody else’s work into insignificance. Tony O’Neill will be remembered in years to come, when Monica Ali and Zadie Smith are nothing but footnotes.” —StraightfromtheFridge.com”
― Tony O'Neill, Down and Out on Murder Mile

“The heroin I bought last night was so-so at best, but I dumped a lot into my wake up shot and managed to find a decent vein in my ankle. The dope flooded my bloodstream and I could feel normality returning: my aching muscles relaxed, the ice unthawed around my bones, my jangling nerves subsisted. I looked at my watch; it was 6:30 a. m. Another perfect fucking day had begun.”
― Tony O'Neill, Digging the Vein

“Weren’t they one of those one-hit wonder bands, like Dexys Midnight Runners and shit?” “Dexys weren’t one-hit wonders back home. They were a good band. That fucking ‘Come On Eileen’ shit was not what they were all about.”
― Tony O'Neill, Sick City

“He looked weak and shaky; the poor bastard had obviously blown out the circuitry in an important part of the brain with drugs, and no amount of therapy in the world can fix that.”
― Tony O'Neill, Sick City

“The days stretch on, impossible and unfathomable. I wonder how can life be simultaneously so incredibly boring and so impossibly miraculous. The first of us to fall asleep wakes up the other.”
― Tony O'Neill, Dirty Hits: Stories 2003-2013