“Homesickness hits hardest in the middle of a crowd in a large, alien city.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“In reading he found solitude. In reading he could dispel the blare of the world.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“Son, always answer back when you receive an insult. Do it straight away. Even if there’s a chance there was nothing behind it, take back control, answer them back. An insult is an attack. You must counter.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“I like being a faggot, mate, I like it a lot and I think being free in our middle age is what we deserve for straights making our childhood and our teenage years so cuntish.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“He was going to take in, possess the whole of the world. Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi? Fuck off. He wanted more.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“I want two scars, one on each of my shoulder blades.”
He shrugged in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Two scars,” I repeated, “for where my wings used to be, where my wings were torn away from me.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“I wonder if it is the same for women, whether women always feel this pain when they are fucked? Or is it only in sodomy that pain and pleasure are so linked, so inextricable?”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“Being working class wasn’t about words, it could only be expressed through the body.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“It’s alright,” they say, “Of course, there’s beauty there,” but they hold back; you know they have seen or heard of the ugliness and the insularity there. They have experienced the farawayness of it. I have learned to keep silent, not to berate them for their disregard of the Brits’ role in the colonial tragedy of my country.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“I suppose he did – you cannot get further than Australia, can you, lad?”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“He imagined forgiveness was like flying, that it made you soar. He imagined that it looked like an eagle, a silver bolt in the sky, that it was pure light.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“She didn’t call people cunts anymore. Now she said she had problems with the word cunt. She said it was sexist – and if not sexist, they were racist, and if not racist, they were het-er-o-NORM-a-tive, a word he always had to spell out in his head to remember. He could never remember what it meant but he assumed it had to be bad.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“It is gaol that finally reveals to me the beauty of Shakespeare, the spirit in his words, the jaw-dropping audacity of his language.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“Contemporary writers annoyed him, he found their worlds insular, their style too self-conscious and ironic. Theirs was not a literature that belonged to him.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
Christos Tsiolkas
Born place: Melbourne, Australia
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“Were Wilde's panthers grateful or rebellious? Eventually, of course, one prefers a rebellious bedfellow. But it requires a degree of gratitude to get him into bed in the first place”
― Jamie O'Neill, quote from At Swim, Two Boys
“The first indication of menopause is a broken thermostat. It's either that or your weight. In any case, if you don't do something, you could be dead by August.
God, middle age is an unending insult.”
― Dorothea Benton Frank, quote from Sullivan's Island
“People like mystery. They want nothing explained, because when things are explained then there is no hope left. I have seen folk dying and known there is nothing to be done, and I am asked to go because the priest will soon arrive with his dish covered by a cloth, and everyone prays for a miracle. It never happens. And the person dies and I get blamed, not God or the priest, but I!”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Vagabond
“Most myths contain a grain of truth,” said Lantern, warily. “Indeed they do, Younger Brother. Is that why you carry a lock of hair and a fragment of bone within the locket around your neck?” For a moment only, Lantern’s sapphire eyes glinted with anger. “You see a great deal, Elder Brother. You see into men’s dreams, and you see through metal. Perhaps you should be reading the dreams of the townsfolk.” “I know their dreams, Lantern. They want food for their tables and warmth in the winter. They want their children to have better and safer lives than they can provide. The world is a huge and terrifying place for them. They are desperate for simple answers to life’s problems.”
― David Gemmell, quote from White Wolf
“It’s funny how you want to do a thing and never do it.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from In Dubious Battle
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Raven's GateBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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