Quotes by Australian Authors - Page 51

I must have appeared like a real bad boy in Christy's eyes. Well, at least a bad boy by home and away standards.
S.A. Tawks
I have two moods when I get drunk. The common mood is the lazy, happy-go-lucky guy. The uncommon mood is the frustrated, self-deprecating guy. That night was the latter.
S.A. Tawks
I was far too nervous to be concerned about contributing to the conversations.
S.A. Tawks
I also smoked two cigarettes, which was pretty good considering I could have smoked five if I'd really tried.
S.A. Tawks
You'll be making so much cash that you won't know what to waste it on.
S.A. Tawks
What's inside is none of your business. Your business is getting it for him and getting it to him.
S.A. Tawks
Your choice is your choice and you need to accept what happens, not shift the blame to someone else if it doesn't turn out your way.
S.A. Tawks
I don't make people smoke pot or meth, snort coke, put pills or tabs in their mouths or shoot themselves up with heroin. I just transport the stuff.
S.A. Tawks
I'm not a hero, though. I'm just a man.
S.A. Tawks
It'll be the biggest decision of my life. Knowing me, I'll probably make the wrong choice.
S.A. Tawks
Anxiety's already tingling my skin.
S.A. Tawks
A donation to the police officer's back pocket should have you on your way without a problem.
S.A. Tawks
Appreciate the negatives. Because the negatives are what you learn from to make more positives.
S.A. Tawks
Yeah," I said because it led to more options than 'no'.
S.A. Tawks
Do you want me to call the internet police for you?
S.A. Tawks
Natural art is the most amazing form of art there is.
S.A. Tawks
By the first mouthful I knew that I was going to get drunk that night. The drink tasted too good not to.
S.A. Tawks
Can't get myself down by thinking about what could have been, right?
S.A. Tawks
I'd gotten high enough to fly through time.
S.A. Tawks
I figured this guy was a fair dinkum Australian. The type of guy that worked the land all day, cracked open a beer or two at night and called girls 'sheilas'.
S.A. Tawks
That's one of those questions that you think of a better answer for five minutes after you've answered it.
S.A. Tawks
I figured, what harm could come from a little bit of fun? Crabs. The Canadian girl gave me crabs.
S.A. Tawks
I figured that maybe he was only hanging around for the tea and tobacco and when one ran out, so would he.
S.A. Tawks
Sure, I might not be someone to look up to, but you're no role model either.
S.A. Tawks
The day, like all good days, passed far too quickly.
S.A. Tawks
She's happy to be home but being home means that it's an end to her adventure and escape.
S.A. Tawks
Our bags will be light because it's the best way to travel.
S.A. Tawks
I'd gotten on the piss and it had kicked me the fuck off. Hard.
S.A. Tawks
Besides, if it was the wrong choice, what difference was one more bad decision going to make?
S.A. Tawks
Your choices can only be limited by your mind.
S.A. Tawks
Don't just hope, dear. Plan and do. Only reserve hope for the things you cannot control.
S.A. Tawks
Living the rest of my life in Kerobokan, waiting to die, was what I had in front of me.
S.A. Tawks
You need a break every once in a while to enjoy the everyday and you need the everyday to enjoy the break you take every once in a while.
S.A. Tawks
Reassuring thoughts have a funny way of getting stuck on repeat. Then you wake up one day and you can't remember where you put the last thirty years of your life.
S.A. Tawks
However, with a gut full of heroin, it's hard to be an optimist.
S.A. Tawks
Many are the friendships that have found an unforseeen and sudden end on a journey, and few are those that survive it.
Elizabeth von Arnim
I have come to believe that we steer our individual spheres of being through the spectra of possible worlds via the choices we make, the acts we perform. Most people stick to known routes, and therefore cannot travel far. They live too modestly, and perhaps too privately. Only by being strange can we move, for strange acts cause us to be rejected by whatever normality we have offended, and to be propelled towards a normality that can better accommodate us.
K.J. Bishop
His introduction throws me. The only time I can envision "Hi, I'm a surgeon" as a fitting introduction is if I were on a gurney in a stark white room and a man wielding a scalpel was standing over me. Plus, it's been a while since we've talked careers with anyone. Jobs are rarely a topic of conversation anymore--they exist in a place and time too far away to seem interesting. "What do you do?" is not a question asked to define someone, because out here we're all working the same jobs: yachties, mechanics, navigators, weather-readers, fishermen, adventure travelers, storytellers.
Torre DeRoche
There is nothing quite like a real political whiz. Some adopt an inscrutable, almost somnolent demeanour and make you beg for their wisdom, while others come at you like a whirlwind. The effect in both cases is the same: even when you think they must be extracting certitude from guesses or cucumbers from sunbeams, you are captive, not only to the verbal artistry but to the weight of the movement, the sense that on these matters to which you are now privy the course of history depends, Politics being civil war by other means, it is fought with the same volumes of smoke and passion and ruthless brutality, and it leaves some of the same psychic wounds. All political environments - democratic, republican and monarchical - have this much in common: it is never more than a short walk in any direction to find someone who disagrees with the last person you spoke to, or who envies or disapproves or wants to thwart him, or who feels thwarted, threatened or misused by him.As our conversation in the Four Seasons concluded, my friend stubbed out the butt of his cigar. I still had three inches to smoke. I left with it and later that evening I met a consultant, also from the Democratic side, who tried to put me wise to the first man’s failings. To be frank, I was left not knowing whom to believe. The consultant told me that these days he thinks it impossible for the US political system to throw up people or parties of true character, vision or integrity. (A businessman from the Republican side once told me the same thing.) Rather, the system is now ideal for hacks, ‘yes men’ and fodder for lobbyists. Political thinking has become institutionalised and incapable of solving the country’s problems. The press has lost character in proportion to the politician, and accepts their values and arguments almost without question. He thought universal national service with a non-military option might be one way to spread the burden and rekindle a sense of shared responsibility.
Don Watson
When I opened the curtains in the morning I saw the intersection of two six-lane highways. It was a comfortable, well equipped, practical sort of place, as Holidays Inns tend to be. You can be happy at a place like this so long as you stay away from the coffee. And the restaurant, if you want to be sure. Perhaps not happy, but not unhappy. Or if unhappy, at least not threatened. A good motel creates a kind of stasis for the soul in transit. One should leave no worse than one arrived: that is the minimum requirement.
Don Watson
I am compelled into this country.
Patrick White
Dad reckons if you have a great time in one place, then that's a good reason for never going back. Nothing will ever measure up to the first time. He laughs at people who go to the same place every year, same beach, same house, same things to do.
James Moloney
From the pleasure podium of Ali Qapu, beyond the enhanced enclosure, the city spread itself towards the horizon. Ugly buildings are prohibited in Esfahan. They go to Tehran or stay in Mashhad. Planters vie with planners to outnumber buildings with trees. Attracting nightingales, blackbirds and orioles is considered as important as attracting people. Maples line the canals, reaching towards each other with branches linked. Beneath them, people meander, stroll and promenade. The Safavids' high standards generated a kind of architectural pole-vaulting competition in which beauty is the bar, and ever since the Persians have been imbuing the most mundane objects with design. Turquoise tiles ennoble even power stations.In the meadow in the middle of Naghshe Jahan, as lovers strolled or rode in horse-drawn traps, I lay on my back picking four-leafed clovers and looking at the sky. There was an intimacy about its grandeur, like having someone famous in your family. The life of centuries past was more alive here than anywhere else, its physical dimensions unchanged. Even the brutal mountains, folded in light and shadows beyond the square, stood back in awe of it. At three o'clock, the tiled domes soaked up the sunshine, transforming its invisible colours to their own hue, and the gushing fountains ventilated the breeze and passed it on to grateful Esfahanis. But above all was the soaring sky, captured by this snare of arches.(p378)
Christopher Kremmer
The map? I will first make it.
Patrick White
Honestly, if I stay on this gruelling path, I'm going to end up as another suicide statistic.
S.A. Tawks
[Walking] is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside.
Elizabeth von Arnim
May my thoughts of kindness stretch over like a warm blanket to envelop your being and caress your soul.
Truth Devour
Sometimes when you’re struggling to see kindness in the world, you need to be the creator of it to remind yourself it does exist.
Truth Devour
Please hold onto your kindess, we share the world with many selfish beings And we need open hearts to create change.
Nikki Rowe
be kind, even when others are not, It empowers them to become a better version of themselves.
Nikki Rowe
Kindness is all we have to give others
Kimberley Freeman
The world is a chaotic place find a love that doesn't allow a home to have the same feeling.
Nikki Rowe
If 10 percent of the population were to take a consciously ethical outlook on life and act accordingly, the resulting change would be more significant than any change of government,
Peter Singer
It seemed like an original act, the very kindest act of being human, that he listened.
Sue Woolfe
Capable, generous men do not create victims, they nurture victims.
Julian Assange
(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.
J.M. Coetzee
Mindful of not thanking their benefactors, in case, like wights, they took offense, she added, "Your kindness is gratefully acknowledged. May your trees be forever fruitful.
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
She had seen what it cost him and her heart quickened with compassion. For that alone, she might have loved him almost.
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
There are people who have the capacity to imagine themselves as someone else, there are people who have no such capacity (when the lack is extreme, we call them psychopaths), and there are people who have the capacity but choose not to exercise it.
J.M. Coetzee
Understanding that you can’t truly take credit for your successes, nor truly blame others for their failures will humble you and make you more compassionate.Empathy is intuitive, but is also something you can work on, intellectually.
Tim Minchin