Shakespeare was completely fictionalising the people who were then the great celebrities of English. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I'm afraid a lot of people have lost a lot of money over the years betting on me. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
The idea of some people being less than people is poison to any society and needs to be named as such in… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
What is missed when people talk about books is the moment of grace when the reader creates the book, lends it the… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I think it's always wrong of writers to make too much of the pains of their labors, because most people have much… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
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… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I realised that if I wished to write about the dark and not allow for hope, people would recognise it as false… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I think all novels are contemporary. When people went to see 'Antony-Cleopatra' at the Globe in the 16th century, they were not… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I do feel like a fraud a lot of the time because I've never been interested in people who say 'I'm a… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
I went to study at Oxford University in the 1980s on an imperial scholarship instituted by Cecil Rhodes. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
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 Copy Share
In reading, you sense the divine: the things that are larger and greater and more mysterious than yourself. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
Within white Australia, there was a growing movement for what was known as reconciliation - a movement that peaked with millions marching in 2000… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
In 1995, the Paul Keating Labor government commissioned an inquiry into the forcible removal of Aboriginal children. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
Murder and hate are as deeply buried in the human heart as love, perhaps more so, and in truth they're rather entwined, and if… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
My father was the first to read in his family, and he said to me that words were the first beautiful thing he ever… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
I grew up in a world that was clannish - old Tasmanian-Irish families with big extended families. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
If 30 Australians drowned in Sydney Harbour, it would be a national tragedy. But when 30 or more refugees drown off the Australian coast,… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
The enslavement, humiliation, torture, and ultimate destruction of thousands upon thousands of human beings for a project for which there was ultimately no purpose… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
In Tasmania, an island the size of Ireland whose primeval forests astonished 19th-century Europeans, an incomprehensible ecological tragedy is being played out. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
You have to attempt to find new forms that will force you to write freshly and better and hopefully more truthfully. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
Family matters, friends matter, love matters. Those you love and who love you matter. That's what writing does - it allows you to say… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
A good book ... leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own soul. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share
