Richard Flanagan quotes

If 30 Australians drowned in Sydney Harbour, it would be a national tragedy. But when 30 or more refugees drown off the Australian coast, it is a political question. (Richard Flanagan)
My secret skill is baking bread. My mother was a farmer's daughter and still made bread every day when I was a child. She would have me knead the dough when I got home from school.
Richard Flanagan
I believe in the verb, not the noun - I am not a writer, but someone compelled to write.
Richard Flanagan
We're a migrant nation made up of people who've been torn out of other worlds, and you'd think we would have some compassion.
Richard Flanagan
I think all novels are contemporary. When people went to see 'Antony-Cleopatra' at the Globe in the 16th century, they were not going to get a history lesson on the Roman Empire. It was about love, sex, and also about dynastic troubles.
Richard Flanagan
A happy man has no past, while an unhappy man has nothing else.
Richard Flanagan
There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything.
Richard Flanagan
Is it easier for a man to live his life again as a fish, than to accept the wonder of being human? So alone, so frightened, so wanting for what we are afraid to give tongue to.
Richard Flanagan
Writing is not lying, nor is it theft. It is a journey and search for transparency between one's words and one's soul.
Richard Flanagan
What reality was ever made by realists?
Richard Flanagan
I do not share the pessimism of the age about the novel. They are one of our greatest spiritual, aesthetic and intellectual inventions. As a species it is story that distinguishes us, and one of the supreme expressions of story is the novel. Novels are not content. Nor are they are a mirror to life or an explanation of life or a guide to life. Novels are life, or they are nothing. (Richard Flanagan)
The path to survival was to never give up on the small things.
Richard Flanagan
When forging money, I had always salved my conscience by concluding that I was merely extending the lie of commerce.
Richard Flanagan
We remember nothing. Maybe for a year or two. Maybe most of a life, if we live. Maybe. But then we will die, and who will ever understand any of this? And maybe we remember nothing most of all when we put our hands on our hearts and carry on about not forgetting.
Richard Flanagan
One cannot distinguish between human and non-human acts. One cannot point, one cannot say this man here is a man and that man there is a devil.
Richard Flanagan