Quotes from Barracuda

“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

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“The mind of man is capable of anything-because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage-who can tell?-but truth-truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder-the man know, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet the truth with his own true stuff-with his own inborn strength.”
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BookQuoters 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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.