39 quotes
His wife was a good woman, and he understood that. But he remembered what the minister at Margaret River used to say - the good are fierce.
Cloudstreet (1991)
"Can you shoot?"
"I s'pose you mean can I hit anything?"
In the Winter Dark (1988)
I wondered what I woulda done if I'd missed that euro. But that was like wondering what your life'd be like if your dad wasn't a douche.
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)
I knew I'd failed a test whose rules I didn't yet understand.
Breath (2008)
Tomorrow'll be a new day. Which is really the same miserable fucking day all over again.
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)
"I only believe in one thing, Les," Sam solemnly uttered. "Hairy Hand of God, otherwise known as Lady Luck. Our Lady, if she's shinin that lamp on ya, she'll give you what you want."
Cloudstreet (1991)
Why was it that he didn't know a thing about the underlying nature of people, the shadows and shifts, the hungers and hopes that caused them to do the things they did?
Cloudstreet (1991)
Over the years Ida had fattened up. She sort of spread, like a garden gone wild.
In the Winter Dark (1988)
It's one thing to think someone's stupid. And fair enough if you need them to be. But you can't go banking on it. That's a mug's game.
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)
Though it seemed so beautiful, the world around us was eternally dangerous. The price of spiritual freedom, we learnt, was eternal vigilance. Such a high price for so long.
The Turning (2004)
Oriel looked at the potatoes in her hand and thought of the things she'd like to tell the spud growers of Australia about taking a little time, a little pride and a little care.
Cloudstreet (1991)
But Paris was a black hole, somewhere where Jennifer came hard up against the wall of her limitations while all he could do was stand by and watch.
The Riders (1994)
I didn't even know why I liked her. She was just there. I was used to her.
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)
Jim wanted to fish but he wanted his sons to do something else. He didn't want them to follow the standard White Point trajectory which meant bumping out of school at fifteen to end up in seaboots or prison greens.
Dirt Music (2001)
Still you can't keep doing the coulda and the woulda and the shoulda. And if there's one thing I know it's this. Doesn't matter how smart you are, or even how careful or lucky, there's some mistakes you just keep making over and over.
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)
I knew what people thought. Clacktons, we were rubbish. Town like Monkton, one pub, roadhouse, rail silo and twelve streets, half of them empty, small enough everyone heard something and they all had a fucking opinion.
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)
She held the needle to the light. It was a wonder how something sharp came down to nothing like that. She looked through the needle's eye. So that's the Kingdom of Heaven, she thought. So that's all there was.
Cloudstreet (1991)
"Our stories. We store them where moth and rust destroy. We're precious about them, no? Not because we treasure them at all, but because it's safer to hold them close. Am I reading you right? Do we have that much in common?"
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)
Sometimes she couldn't think what jerrybuilt frame was holding her together. It wasn't willpower anymore. She'd gone past that lately. She only had will enough to make everything else work, these days. There was never enough left for her. She was like that blessed truck of Lester's, running on an empty sump.
Cloudstreet (1991)