My ancestors came from Co Roscommon, transported to Van Diemen's Land for stealing food. — Richard Flanagan Ancestors Copy Share Image
Love stories seek to demonstrate the great truth of love: that we discover eternity in a moment that dies immediately after. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
We live in a material world, not a dramatic one. And truth resides not in melodrama, but in the precise measure of… — Richard Flanagan Dramatic Copy Share Image
“The most important thing is our dignity. If we have that we can survive on bread and water.” — Richard Flanagan Dignity Copy Share Image
“Because not to fear was to imagine a world beyond experience. And that was too much for anybody.” — Richard Flanagan Experience Copy Share Image
“for a moment he wondered:what if this had all been a mask for the most terrible evil? The idea was too horrific… — Richard Flanagan Evil Copy Share Image
Love is the scent of a sleeping back, death a slight draft of bad breath. — Richard Flanagan Bad breath Copy Share Image
I believe in the verb, not the noun - I am not a writer, but someone compelled to write. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
Within white Australia, there was a growing movement for what was known as reconciliation - a movement that peaked with millions marching… — Richard Flanagan Australia Copy Share Image
My secret skill is baking bread. My mother was a farmer's daughter and still made bread every day when I was a… — Richard Flanagan Baking Copy Share Image
Perhaps the virtue of coming from a place like Tasmania is that you had the great gift of knowing that you were… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
If 30 Australians drowned in Sydney Harbour, it would be a national tragedy. But when 30 or more refugees drown off the… — Richard Flanagan Australian Copy Share Image
Family matters, friends matter, love matters. Those you love and who love you matter. That's what writing does - it allows you… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
“Realism is the embrace of disappointment, in order no longer to be disappointed. 4 “So I came to the city, my friend,”… — Richard Flanagan Disappointment Copy Share Image
“Horror can be contained within a book, given form and meaning. But in life horror has no more form than it does… — Richard Flanagan Books Copy Share Image
Writing about sex at length is a bit like describing mastication at length. It's the causes and the consequences and the meaning… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
“Why at the beginning of things is there always light? Dorrigo Evans' earliest memories were of sun flooding a church hall in… — Richard Flanagan Childhood Copy Share Image
If you choose to take your compass from power, in the end you find only despair. But if you look around the… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
“It was a fabled railway that was the issue of desperation and fanaticism, made as much of myth and unreality as it… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
“Because in the end history—like the Berlin Wall—shapes people, had shaped her, but would not in the end determine her, because in… — Richard Flanagan Berlin wall Copy Share Image
I once knew a guy that everyone called Trodon because his face looked like it had been trod on. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
Companies that are terrifying to a writer are companies like Amazon. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
Writing reminds you that you're never alone. Writing and reading is to be optimistic. — Richard Flanagan Art Copy Share Image
There is a crisis that is not political - an epidemic of loneliness, of sadness - and we're completely unequal to dealing… — Richard Flanagan Crisis Copy Share Image
The past is there, but life is circular. I have a strong sense of the circularity of time. — Richard Flanagan Circular Copy Share Image
Film is the art of turning money into light, and light into money. But it begins with money. — Richard Flanagan Art Copy Share Image
“vessels with mini-subs and helicopters attached. As well as undertaking the more conventional” — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
It's a sin for a writer to go looking for camels to put into his or her pages. I only want details… — Richard Flanagan Camels Copy Share Image
There's always been something deeply disturbing about the Abbott government's attitude to women. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
A good book ... leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own soul. — Richard Flanagan Book Copy Share Image
Look at the history of literature, and you find the history of beauty on the one hand and the IOUs on the… — Richard Flanagan Beauty Copy Share Image
In reading, you sense the divine: the things that are larger and greater and more mysterious than yourself. — Richard Flanagan Divine Copy Share Image
An unskilled middle-aged man can work in the mines, and it pays well. — Richard Flanagan Man Copy Share Image
God gets the great stories. Novelists must make do with more mundane fictions. — Richard Flanagan Fictions Copy Share Image
I come from a tiny mining town in the rainforest in an island at the end of the world. My grandparents were… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
“Love is public,... or it’s not love. Love is shared with others or it dies.” — Richard Flanagan Love Copy Share Image
There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything. — Richard Flanagan Inspirational Copy Share Image
Under Howard, federal government support for black Australia slowly dried up. Services were slashed, native title restricted. — Richard Flanagan Australia Copy Share Image
“Days and months are travellers of eternity. So too the years that pass by” — Richard Flanagan Eternity Copy Share Image
I am an admirer of haiku, and I'm a great admirer of Japanese literature in general. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
