“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
Tim Winton
Born place: in Perth, Australia
Born date August 4, 1960
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“What shall I do, singer and first-born, in a
world where the deepest black is grey,
and inspiration is kept in a thermos?
with all this immensity
in a measured world? ”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, quote from Selected Poems
“Lois. Oh… no. Lois. Dinner. His name … be it Clark Kent or Superman …was mud. –Clark Kent”
― C.J. Cherryh, quote from Lois & Clark: A Superman Novel
“...It felt like they were telling each other secrets. Everything they said felt like that—whispered, tender, full of other meanings, like when you tell someone a dream or talk about your astrological signs as code for all the things you love about each other.”
― Francesca Lia Block, quote from Wasteland
“How the hell was it that she’d always been so comfortable with him before, but as soon as she’d realized she was in love with him, as soon as she told him that … she was nervous all the time?”
― Stacia Kane, quote from Sacrificial Magic
“Rhetoric is what shapes history, if not truth.”
― Anna Deavere Smith, quote from Letters to a Young Artist
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