Quotes from Asking For It

Louise O'Neill ·  346 pages

Rating: (9.8K votes)


“They are all innocent until proven guilty. But not me. I am a liar until I am proven honest.”
― Louise O'Neill, quote from Asking For It


“We teach our girls how not to get raped with a sense of doom, a sense that we are fighting a losing battle. When I was writing this novel, friend after friend came to me telling me of something that had happened to them. A hand up their skirt, a boy who wouldn’t take no for an answer, a night where they were too drunk to give consent but they think it was taken from them anyway. We shared these stories with one another and it was as if we were discussing some essential part of being a woman, like period cramps or contraceptives. Every woman or girl who told me these stories had one thing in common: shame. ‘I was drunk . . . I brought him back to my house . . . I fell asleep at that party . . . I froze and I didn’t tell him to stop . . .’ My fault. My fault. My fault. When I asked these women if they had reported what had happened to the police, only one out of twenty women said yes. The others looked at me and said, ‘No. How could I have proved it? Who would have believed me?’ And I didn’t have any answer for that.”
― Louise O'Neill, quote from Asking For It


“My body is not my own any more. They have stamped their names all over it.”
― Louise O'Neill, quote from Asking For It


“I am not falling apart. I am being ripped at the seams, my insides torn out until I am hollow.”
― Louise O'Neill, quote from Asking For It


“When did we all become fluent in this language that none of us wanted to learn?”
― Louise O'Neill, quote from Asking For It



“Is it possible to want everything to change and nothing to change, all at the same time?”
― Louise O'Neill, quote from Asking For It


“I like it better when my room is pitch black, when the dark is so thick it swallows me up and I feel as if I could drown in it.”
― Louise O'Neill, quote from Asking For It


“What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"I don't know, Em." Bryan takes a gulp from his water bottle. "It's a bit slutty, isn't it?"

I stare pointedly at the FHM poster Blu-Tacked on the wall opposite the bed, of some topless model, one finger in her mouth, the other hand reaching into her knickers.

"That's different.”
― Louise O'Neill, quote from Asking For It


About the author

Louise O'Neill
Born place: in Cork, Ireland
Born date February 24, 2018
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Popular quotes

“Atunci am înțeles că nimic nu durează în suflet, că cea mai verificată încredere poate fi anulată de un singur gest, că cele mai sincere posesiuni nu dovedesc niciodată nimic, căci și sinceritatea poate fi repetată, cu altul, cu alții, că, în sfârșit, totul se uită sau se poate uita.”
― Mircea Eliade, quote from Maitreyi


“کتابوں سے محبت کرنے والے لوگ اس قدر سنجیدہ ہوجاتے ہیں کہ مزاح ان کی زندگی سے مکمل طور پر نکل جاتا ہے اور وہ سارا وقت لمبا جبہ پہن کر پڑھے ہوئے نظریات کی لاٹھی سے دوسروں کی پٹائی میں مصروف رہتے ہیں.”
― Bano Qudsia, quote from Raja Gidh / راجه گدھ


“Today the word "hero" has been diminished. confused with "celebrity." But in my father's generation the word meant something.
celebrities seek fame. They take actions to get attention. Most often, the actions they take have no particular moral content. Heroes are heroes because they have risked something to help others. Their actions involve courage. Often, those heroes have been indifferent to the public's attention. But at least, the hero could understand the focus of the emotion.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers


“Con! Fuck!"

Male voice. Deep.

Con blinked, coming out of his haze to see Shade beneath him. Con's erection was pushed hard against Shade's thigh, and yeah....not cool.

Panting and shaking like a leaf, Con scrambled off him.

"Ah...I don't...that was, ah...not for you."

"I fucking hope not," Shade muttered.

~Con/Shade”
― Larissa Ione, quote from Sin Undone


“I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from The Gay Science


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