Quotes by Australian Authors - Page 43

Why should we remain innocent of what lurks in the shadows? How can we live in the world if we don't understand how dark and brutal it can be?
Penny Matthews
A risk to own anything: a car, a pair of shoes, a packet of cigarettes. Not enough to go around, not enough cars, shoes, cigarettes. Too many people, too few things. What there is must go into circulation, so that everyone can have a chance to be happy for a day. That is the theory; hold to the theory and to the comforts of theory. Not human evil, just a vast circulatory system, to whose workings pity and terror are irrelevant. That is how one must see life in this country: in its schematic aspect. Otherwise one could go mad. Cars, shoes; women too. There must be some niche in the system for women and what happens to them.
J.M. Coetzee
The gods do make playthings of us. But it is we mortals who provide them with tools.
Melina Marchetta
Life may look to be made up of incredible coincidences. One problem. I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe in twists of fate.
Tania Elizabeth
...maybe that's why this all went wrong. Like fate saying 'hey, you rush me so I'll fuck up everything for you guys.
Kat T. Masen
Do you know something? I've got this funny feeling fate arranged for you to enter my life for the express purpose of tormenting me.
Lindsay Armstrong
To be angry at the gods is to scream at the stars. Even if they hear, they will not stop shining.
Andrea K. Höst
You walked into my heart, Without my permission And the more I've tried to hold on to the control, They deeper you have sunk. Your a love I can't grasp hold of, maybe that's why it scares that absolute shit out of me.
Nikki Rowe
We start each day with a blank sheet of paper in front of us, and what we write on it is up to us.
John Larkin
Life is full of alternatives but no choice.
Patrick White
Speaking the words he had been taught, directing them no longer upward but to the earth on which he knelt, he prayed: 'For what we are about to receive make us truly thankful.' ... he... felt his heart suddenly flow over with thankfulness... like a gush of warm water... All that remains is to live here quietly for the rest of my life, eating food that my own labour has made the earth to yield. All that remains is to be a tender of the soil.
J.M. Coetzee
Our great adventure ran out of petrol and stopped on this farm.
Steven Herrick
What we decide to do in the face of adversity is perhaps the truest measure of character.
Ian Usher
But at the very moment she was thinking these thoughts, adventure, as she afterwards told my Mother, was stalking her.
P.L. Travers
I kept getting the odd sensation that I was in fact perfectly stationary, and that I was pushing the world around under my feet.
Robyn Davidson
As academia became my identity, my fascination with firefighters became buried and, seemingly, died.
S.A. Tawks
Cussing like a commoner wasn't something I was tested on. I picked that habit up outside of high school.
S.A. Tawks
I'll tell you what you want to hear. I mean, what I need to hear. I'll tell the truth.
S.A. Tawks
Harry and I are misadventurous misadventurers that like to partake in misadventure.
S.A. Tawks
A misadventurer's greatest fear is their mother.
S.A. Tawks
My anger tempted the act of delinquency and it felt good to dabble.
S.A. Tawks
The purpose of water is to drink it but we swim in it for the fun of it.
S.A. Tawks
There were no snooty commuters at this late hour. They were home snug in their beds where they should be.
S.A. Tawks
After spending the previous night the way I had, I felt I could afford to lose some of the daytime to sleep.
S.A. Tawks
Maybe if you allowed me to blow off some steam, I wouldn't have been so frustrated when I had to find higher order fucking derivatives.
S.A. Tawks
Acting with confidence, but inside lacking certainty, I'd told her I could.
S.A. Tawks
They had to be untrustworthy enough to buy a minor alcohol but trustworthy enough to not walk away with my money.
S.A. Tawks
One thing a girl loves more than a bad boy is a self-aware bad boy.
S.A. Tawks
As long as you don't kill someone or seriously maim them, sure, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks as long as you have a good time.
S.A. Tawks
Misadventure will always cause someone to be pissed off at you, because they don't know what degree you're willing to go to to satisfy your need for misadventure.
S.A. Tawks
Substituting the discount rate for the ever increasing chance of death and a dollar for joy, joy today is worth more than joy tomorrow.
S.A. Tawks
I'd been exposed to alternate ways of thinking and it seriously affected the way my mother had reared me.
S.A. Tawks
A misadventure is an act that has a safer, less self-detrimental, less interesting alternative. But you choose that act because you want to do something memorable and worthy of discussion.
S.A. Tawks
An adventurer has a purpose. Such as finding new lands and valuable treasures. A misadventurer, besides doing it for the hell of it and for a good time, doesn't really have a good purpose.
S.A. Tawks
Misadventure asked what the harm was partaking in one more and I decided not to argue with her.
S.A. Tawks
Patience, persistence and hard work lead to success and happiness. Or you can do whatever the hell you want and with a bit or a whole lot of luck you'll stumble onto success and happiness.
S.A. Tawks
What does a guy say to that? What does an inexperienced guy say to a beautiful, smart, proper girl who's not supposed to say things like that?
S.A. Tawks
Sheesh two-legs. You keep screechin' like that, you mind's well tell all 'em Banshee "I'm here, eat me - I bring salt
Veronica Purcell
I found it hard to get motivated because I found it hard to care.
S.A. Tawks
A million dollars. Think about it for a moment. It’s not just a large number – it’s a symbol of everything we’ve been told to want in this world. Foreign cars with doors that swing up like magical wings. Houses with in-ground pools and wine cellars. Wines that are older than you, and foods with names that can’t be pronounced by mere mortals. A million dollars would open the kind of doors the general public doesn’t even know exist.
Ana Spoke
My sense of misadventure took over and I began looking at my problems as challenges.
S.A. Tawks
I liked learning but the challenge was that my mother's need to turn education into a competition was ruining the experience for me.
S.A. Tawks
Too much negativity can make the strongest structures dilapidate.
S.A. Tawks
I found that disturbing the night's calm ambience was almost as gratifying as the ambience itself.
S.A. Tawks
Maybe I should have given more thought to her thoughts.
S.A. Tawks
Self-harm appealed to my sadness but I didn't let it coax me.
S.A. Tawks
Would I come off as a creepy-stalker-kind-of-guy or would it demonstrate that I cared?
S.A. Tawks
I'd developed an apology-is-much-better-than-asking-for-permission mentality.
S.A. Tawks
It was as if I was automatically one of them because I smoked.
S.A. Tawks
We smoked the joints down to the roaches and then relaxed beneath the stars to let the drug form dazzling constellations.
S.A. Tawks
It was odd but I couldn't jump the chasm of missing evidence to the conclusion Todd was making.
S.A. Tawks
Most would probably call it a dumb idea, but considering my wants it was a good idea.
S.A. Tawks
It was an impossible achievement but that didn't stop me from trying and having fun.
S.A. Tawks
What does that quote mean to you? Can you explain the concept behind it and not just repeat the pretty phrase to me?
S.A. Tawks
Looking back really does make you wonder, but the truth is it doesn't change a thing.
S.A. Tawks
He seemed like he was baiting me to ask, like he wanted me to know his troubles but wanted me to ask first.
S.A. Tawks
Everyones' worst problems weigh the same, and it's up to you how heavy that weight is and how much you let it drag you down.
S.A. Tawks
I didn't appreciate the moment as much as I should have while living it, but I can attribute that to my poor emotional state and hindsight.
S.A. Tawks
Other times, when existential crisis mode kicked in, I flirted with the idea of giving up and drifting whichever way gravity and wind moved me.
S.A. Tawks
Misadventure was my primary compass and I followed it without caring if I pissed off one person or a whole bunch of people.
S.A. Tawks