Quotes from Cloudstreet

Tim Winton ·  426 pages

Rating: (16.1K votes)


“When I was a girl I had this strong feeling that I didn't belong anywhere,... It was in my head, what I thought and dreamt, what I believed..., that's where I belonged, that was my country.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet


“And you can't help but worry for them, love them, want for them - those who go on down the close, foetid galleries of time and space without you.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet


“Life was something you didn't argue with, because when it came down to it, whether you barracked for God or nothing at all, life was all there was. And death.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet


“Will you look at us by the river! The whole restless mob of us on spread blankets in the dreamy briny sunshine skylarking and chiacking about for one day, one clear, clean, sweet day in a good world in the midst of our living. Yachts run before an unfelt gust with bagnecked pelicans riding above them, the city their twitching backdrop, all blocks and points of mirror light down to the water's edge.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet


“Everything was normal and right. There were dishes in the sink and the sound of kids playing in the street and the trains passing smutty wind. Something had settled over the kitchen. Rose kept the colours inside the lines and all the patterns were proper, sensible and neat. Happiness. That's what it was.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet



“Keep the day ahead of you, that's what the old man used to say.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet


“The pig winks and rolls in the bog. He kicks his legs up and his trotters clack together. The sun is low over the neighbourhood. There is the smell of oncoming night, of pollen settling, the sounds of kids fighting bath time. Lester comes down, waving his hands.
Don't drown the pig, Fish. We're saving him for Christmas! We're gonna eat him.
No!
I'll drink to that, says the pig.
Lester stands there. He looks at Fish. He looks at the porker. He peeps over the fence. The pig. The flamin' pig. The pig has just spoken. It's no language that he can understand, but there's no doubt. He feels a little crook, like maybe he should go over to that tree and puke.
I like him, Lestah.
He talks?
Yep.
Oh, my gawd.
Lester looks at his retarded son again and once more at the pig.
The pig talks.
I likes him.
Yeah, I bet.
The pig snuffles, lets off a few syllables: aka sembon itwa. It's tongues, that's what it is. A blasted Pentecostal pig.
And you understand him?
Yep. I likes him.
Always the miracles you don't need. It's not a simple world, Fish. It's not.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet


“So you've given away the old good and evil? asked Rose, amazed at all this rare talk from Quick.

No. No. I'll stay a cop. But it's not us and them anymore. It's us and us and us. It's always us. That's what they never tell you. Geez, Rose, I just want to do right. But there's no monsters, only people like us. Funny, but it hurts.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet


“Somewhere a bicycle bell rings. Somewhere else there's a war on. Somewhere else people turn to shadows and powder in an instant and the streets turn to funnels and light the sky with their burning. Somewhere a war is over.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet


“Hoping is what people do when they’re too lazy to do anything else. People”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet



“Cover design by John Canty © Penguin Group”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet


“Dogs get howling all down the way. Somewhere a bicycle bell rings. Somewhere else there's a war on. Somewhere else people turn to shadows and powder in an instant and the streets turn to funnels and light in the sky with their burning. Somewhere a war is over.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet


“Life was something you didn’t argue with, because when it came down to it, whether you barracked for God or nothing at all, life was all there was.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Cloudstreet


About the author

Tim Winton
Born place: in Perth, Australia
Born date August 4, 1960
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“[The] maid of honor - the unambiguous, grown-up equivalent of wearing best friend necklaces.”
― Emily Giffin, quote from Love the One You're With


“The good news is that by the second year, those cravings were about as half as frequent, and by the third year, half as much again. I'm still a little bent, a little crooked, but all things crooked, I can't complain. After all those years of all kinds of abuse and crashing into trees at eighty miles an hour and jumping off buildings and living through overdoses and liver disease, I feel better now than I did ten years ago. I might have some scar tissue, but that's alright, I'm still making progress. ”
― Anthony Kiedis, quote from Scar Tissue


“I saw doves and I thought they were rocks, but they were asleep. My breath made them stir, and they rocks took flight, the earth exploding... and my only thought was that I wanted you to see them, too.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs


“We are as ephemeral as rain drops.”
― Robert Charles Wilson, quote from Spin


“I did not grow up in poverty. But I did grow up with a poor boy's sense of longing, in my case not for what my family had never had, but for what we had had and lost.”
― Mohsin Hamid, quote from The Reluctant Fundamentalist


Interesting books

Wither
(91.6K)
Wither
by Lauren DeStefano
The Epic of Gilgamesh
(65.2K)
Shadowland
(73K)
Shadowland
by Alyson Noel
The Invisible Man
(104.4K)
The Invisible Man
by H.G. Wells
Everything, Everything
(214.6K)
Everything, Everythi...
by Nicola Yoon
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
(149.2K)
Mrs. Frisby and the...
by Robert C. O'Brien

About BookQuoters

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.