Quotes from True History of the Kelly Gang

“If you know the country he said then you will be a wild colonial boy forever”
― Peter Carey, quote from True History of the Kelly Gang

“Your grandfather were a quiet and secret man he had been ripped from his home in Tipperary and transported to the prisons of Van Diemen's Land I do not know what was done to him he never spoke of it. When they had finished with their tortures they set him free and he crossed the sea to the colony of Victoria. He were by this time 30 yr. of age red headed and freckled with his eyes always slitted against the sun. My da had sworn an oath to evermore avoid the attentions of the law so when he saw the streets of Melbourne was crawling with policemen worse than flies he walked 28 mi. to the township of Donnybrook and then or soon thereafter he seen my mother. Ellen Quinn were 18 yr. old she were dark haired and slender the prettiest figure on a horse he ever saw but your grandma was like a snare laid out by God for Red Kelly. She were a Quinn and the police would never leave the Quinns alone.”
― Peter Carey, quote from True History of the Kelly Gang

“He were still smiling but his voice were hard as a spoon rattling in a metal cup.”
― Peter Carey, quote from True History of the Kelly Gang

“..however she was a woman and I'd have more luck conjuring up the thoughts of a chinaman than I would figuring out what she was conspiring”
― Peter Carey, quote from True History of the Kelly Gang

“after we ate we was silent on our blankets looking out across the mighty Great Divide I never seen this country before it were like a fairy story landscape the clear and windy skies was filled with diamonds the jagged black outlines of the ranges were a panorama.

You're going to ride a horse across all that.

I know.

He laughed and he were right I knew nothing of what lay ahead.

See that there he pointed. That is called the Crosscut Saw and that one is Mount Speculation and yonder is Mount Buggery and that other is Mount Despair did you know that?

No Harry.

You will and you'll be sorry.”
― Peter Carey, quote from True History of the Kelly Gang

“Many is the night I have sat by the roaring river the rain never ending them logs so green bubbling and spitting blazing in a rage no rain can staunch.”
― Peter Carey, quote from True History of the Kelly Gang

“The clouds was light but queerly yellow on their edges as they moved across the ageless constellations.”
― Peter Carey, quote from True History of the Kelly Gang

“Said he the fact of the matter is I am a rat charmer.

Thats very nice but do you want the flour or not I can't stand here all day discussing it.

I'll give you my two pennies said the old fellow and the benefit of my rat charming.

I have no rats.

Thats for me to know.

What do you mean by that you stinky old galoot do you think I do not know my own house and what is in it?

Never you mind what I mean my name is Kevin the Rat Charmer and that is a name you won't be forgetting in a hurry I will send a plague upon your shebeen.

Will you now?

I will begot and ye will be praying to the Virgin that you had relented of your penny.

And with that he turned away. If he had a swag it were hidden somewhere up the track for my mother never seen it and if he had baby rats riding in his pocket they was cleverly concealed for my mother detected nothing astir on his person. He were just a stinky old man in a woollen coat he went off down the muddy track to the creek then cut down in the direction of Winton. She never saw him again but he were correct that she would remember the name of Kevin the Rat Charmer for many a day.”
― Peter Carey, quote from True History of the Kelly Gang

“And here is the thing about them men they was Australians they knew full well the terror of the unyielding law the historic memory of UNFAIRNESS were in their blood and a man might be a bank clerk or an overseer he might never have been lagged for nothing but still he knew in his heart what it were to be forced to wear the white hood in prison he knew what it were to be lashed for looking a warder in the eye and even a posh fellow like the Moth had breathed that air so the knowledge of unfairness were deep in his bone and marrow.”
― Peter Carey, quote from True History of the Kelly Gang

“A mother can have no secrets in a settler's hut but she cannot so much as break wind and all her children must hear what she has done but now she were far away from Fifteen Mile Creek and no longer could I guess her life. I were told she took laundry and perhaps she did but I am sure she only did what she must do. She had a mother and father and brothers and sisters but in the end she were a poor widow and she had 7 children and all of them was alarmed and unsettled by their lives.”
― Peter Carey, quote from True History of the Kelly Gang

“At the end of the day the fence were still not complete but my family had witnessed my new strength and they I could be the man”
― Peter Carey, quote from True History of the Kelly Gang

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Popular quotes

“People who have always gone right don't know half as much about the nature and ways of going right as those do who have gone wrong.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes

“Tibet has not yet been infested by the worst disease of modern life, the everlasting rush. No one overworks here. Officials have an easy life. They turn up at the office late in the morning and leave for their homes early in the afternoon. If an official has guests or any other reason for not coming, he just sends a servant to a colleague and asks him to officiate for him.
Women know nothing about equal rights and are quite happy as they are. They spend hours making up their faces, restringing their pearl necklaces, choosing new material for dresses, and thinking how to outshine Mrs. So-and-so at the next party. They do not have to bother about housekeeping, which is all done by the servants. But to show that she is mistress the lady of the house always carries a large bunch of keys around with her. In Lhasa every trifling object is locked up and double-locked.
Then there is mah-jongg. At one time this game was a universal passion. People were simply fascinated by it and played it day and night, forgetting everything else—official duties, housekeeping, the family. The stakes were often very high and everyone played—even the servants, who sometimes contrived to lose in a few hours what they had taken years to save. Finally the government found it too much of a good thing. They forbade the game, bought up all the mah-jongg sets, and condemned secret offenders to heavy fines and hard labor. And they brought it off! I would never have believed it, but though everyone moaned and hankered to play again, they respected the prohibition. After mah-jongg had been stopped, it became gradually evident how everything else had been neglected during the epidemic. On Saturdays—the day of rest—people now played chess or halma, or occupied themselves harmlessly with word games and puzzles.”
― Heinrich Harrer, quote from Seven Years in Tibet (Paladin Books)

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― Mario Vargas Llosa, quote from The Time of the Hero

“Among those dazzled by the Administration team was Vice-President Lyndon Johnson. After attending his first Cabinet meeting he went back to his mentor Sam Rayburn and told him with great enthusiasm how extraordinary they were, each brighter than the next, and that the smartest of them all was that fellow with the Stacomb on his hair from the Ford Motor Company, McNamara. “Well, Lyndon,” Mister Sam answered, “you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I’d feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once.” It is my favorite story in the book, for it underlines the weakness of the Kennedy team, the difference between intelligence and wisdom, between the abstract quickness and verbal fluency which the team exuded, and the true wisdom, which is the product of hard-won, often bitter experience. Wisdom for a few of them came after Vietnam.”
― David Halberstam, quote from The Best and the Brightest

“Don't let anyone but a soldier tell you how to fight a war.”
― Nick Cole, quote from The Old Man and the Wasteland

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