Joseph O'Neill Quotes

Going through different places, I stopped through Dubai and stayed there overnight. There I had an ultra-culture shock.

I felt very special in Paris, more special than I felt in London. I love London for different reasons. I've always been close to London, being English. But somehow, there's something special about living as an Englishwoman in Paris.

China was the first time I truly felt like an outsider. I fell in love with the process of trying to become intimate with the culture.

I used to work as a tour guide for Americans. I'm convinced that even after four weeks on the road they had no idea where they had been. They were in a bubble.

I loved France, although I initially thought they were stubborn for always speaking French.

When I went to Australia, I had this feeling, like, 'Wow, this is really a different country.' I think that feeling of genuine foreignness, that this is a very different culture, which is increasingly rare in our globalised world.

As an immigrant, I learned by watching other people.

When I went to Germany, all I knew were German swear words.

The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.

If you come from Paris to Budapest you think you are in Moscow.

A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority.

It is an agreeable and yet a painful sense of novelty to stand for the first time in the midst of a people whose language and manners are different from one's own.

I was first in Sydney in 1993, and have been a few times since then. For someone who didn't know Australia, it came as a shock how intelligent, interesting and funny the people were. If I lived there I might see it differently, but as a visitor it was a lot of fun.

What's the point of being an Australian guy traveling through India if you are going to go to India to meet other Australians?

Going to another country you're not in your house, you're with people you've never met before, and I think it's definitely a good growing experience.

It was nice to be in my own country, where I didn't need a translator or a driver. Where I didn't need to figure out cultural references or what hijab I needed to wear to cover my hair.

When I was travelling in Rajasthan people were waving hands, and it felt like I was visiting my own constituency.

You live overseas, you see these exotic places and you want to know about them. But, weirdly, it also made me homesick for all these very prosaic places in America.

I, made in England, felt excluded, miffed, resistant to the idea of even visiting India, a position of increasing absurdity as, one by one, backpacking friends returned from the place with the standard anecdotal combo of nirvanic epiphany and toilet horror.

When I was 17, I went to India for six weeks and had what, at the time, was a very challenging trip. You walk down the street and you see lepers and beggars, and there were several of us, a group of Americans. I remember we were just trying to park one night somewhere and people were just sleeping in the parking lot.

My dad is from Nottingham - although I've only been there twice in my life, with one being when my friend was at university there. I've always found it a friendly place and has a good night life.

We moved to Australia for two years though and that was a little bit tough trying to fit in.

I traveled so much to dance that I feel a part of many places, but New York is where I spent most of my life and where my career has been - it's the place where I exist.

I'm writing in English; I'm writing for a Western audience, but the people I'm surrounded by in my daily life are mostly non-white.

'Kiss Land' is the story after 'Trilogy'; it's pretty much the second chapter of my life. The narrative takes place after my first flight; it's very foreign, very Asian-inspired. When people ask me, 'Why Japan?' I simply tell them it's the furthest I've ever been from home. It really is a different planet.