Quotes by Australian Authors - Page 83

You have forced your way into my Hua, Eona. Change me. First, by your power- then, just by who you are.
Alison Goodman
It's much easier . . . to be on the verge of something than to actually be it. This would still take time.
Markus Zusak
The world doesn't change in front of your eyes, it changes behind your back.
Terry Hayes
My world was changing, and I was not ready for it.
Juliet Marillier
If you really love someone,' Claudia continued, 'you have to be prepared to accept them as they are. Maybe you hope that one day they get a wake-up call and make the changes for their own reasons.
Graeme Simsion
Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark.
Bryce Courtenay
Female competition is when you are with a guy you like and you look around, see that you're the prettiest girl in the vicinity and feel a huge sense of relief that there's no one to take the attention away from you. (Female competition is a result of women feeling like their greatest sense of self worth , identity and influence comes from their sexual appeal to men. Many women don't even realise they are feeling this way and it's a subconscious thing, but they notice themselves getting jealous when they see other women who they think men would find sexually appealing.)
Miya Yamanouchi
Until I find a home in a human, art has my heart.
Nikki Rowe
You are a devious woman, Blackthorn,' she said. 'I prefer the term strategic thinker.
Juliet Marillier
Something snapped," said Madeline. She saw Perry's hand shining back in its graceful, practiced arc. She heard Bonnie's guttural voice. It occurred to her that there were so many levels of evil in the world. Small evils like her own malicious words. Like not inviting a child to a party. Bigger evils like walking out on your wife and newborn baby or sleeping with your child's nanny. And then there was the sort of evil which Madeline had no experience: cruelty in hotel rooms and violence in suburban homes and little girls sold like merchandise, shattering innocent hearts.
Liane Moriarty
A rose can never be a sunflower, and a sunflower can never be a rose. All flowers are beautiful in their own way, and that's like women too.
Miranda Kerr
Stop making someone else's looks your "#goals". By all means aspire to be a better version of your current self, but don't glorify others when you yourself are glorious.
Miya Yamanouchi
When sisters stand shoulder to shoulder, who stands a chance against us?
Pam Brown
The Old Testament records the sage words of an old woman in addressing two younger ones: 'The Lord grant', said Naomi, 'that ye may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband!' Who ever heard of a woman finding rest in the house of her husband? And yet, and yet ! The restless hearts are not the hearts of wives and of mothers, as many a lonely woman knows. There is no more crushing load than the load of a loveless life. It is a burden that is often beautifully and graciously borne, but its weight is a very real one. The mother may have a bent form, a furrowed brow, and worn, thin hands ; but her heart found its rest for all that. Naomi was an old woman; she knew the world very well, and her words are worth weighing. Heavy luggage is Christ's strange cure for weary hearts.
F.W. Boreham
Until our own time, history focussed on man the achiever; the higher the achiever the more likely it was that the woman who slept in his bed would be judged unworthy of his company. Her husband's fans recoiled from the notion that she might have made a significant contribution towards his achievement of greatness. The possibility that a wife might have been closer to their idol than they could ever be, understood him better than they ever could, could not be entertained.
Germaine Greer
Neither Boncer nor Teddy comes out of the house, not even to watch from the veranda. Here, laying the dead to rest, like washing and feeding and birth, is women’s work.
Charlotte Wood
Does that new man in your life call his ex "a slut", "a whore", "a bitch", "psycho" , "crazy", "a nutter" etc etc. Chances are, whatever he's calling his ex right now, he'll be calling you when things don't go his way. Be warned.
Miya Yamanouchi
And maybe it was more than that.Maybe it was actually an unspoken instant agreement between the four women on the balcony: No woman should pay for the accidental death of this particular man. Maybe it was an involuntary, atavistic response to thousands of years of violence against women. Maybe it was for every rape, every brutal backhanded slap, every other Perry that had come before this one.
Liane Moriarty
And it was only then that I realized what I had let myself in for, and only then I realized how bloody thick I had been not to have predicted it. It would seem that the combination of elements--woman, desert, camels, aloneness--hit some soft sport in this era's passionless, heartless, aching psyche. It fired the imaginations of people who seem themselves as alienated, powerless, unable to do anything about a world gone mad. And wouldn't it be my luck to pick just this combination. The reaction was totally unexpected and it was very, very weird. I was now public property. I was now a kind of symbol. I was now an object of ridicule for small-minded sexists, and I was a crazy, irresponsible adventurer (though not as crazy as I would have been had I failed). But worse than all that, I was now a mythical being who had done something courageous and outside the possibilities that ordinary people could hope for. And that was the antithesis of what I wanted to share. That anyone could do anything. If I could bumble my way across a desert, then anyone could do anything. And that was true especially for women, who have used cowardice for so long to protect themselves that it has become a habit.
Robyn Davidson
I see stunning men walking on the street everyday. Some walk shirtless because it's hot and they feel more comfortable that way. Do I scream out at them, beep at them or whistle? No, I smile to myself in appreciation of them and drive on by. Why? Because I believe they have the right to go about their lives without me imposing my sexual desire upon them.
Miya Yamanouchi
There is a simple explanation for why men haven't found women funny. It's because men only ever experience women in relation to men: they never get to see what women are like with one another. Shows like ours started to let men in on the joke.
Magda Szubanski
Thirty years on, femininity is still compulsory for women—and has become an option for men—while genuine femaleness remains grotesque to the point of obscenity. Meanwhile, the price of the small advances we have made towards sexual equality has been the denial of femaleness as any kind of a distinguishing character.
Germaine Greer
The world is a big place for a little heart like mine, I have kept it locked away until I meet warrior that tames my wild.
Nikki Rowe
Once a woman is comfortable in her own skin, living her own life and building a foundation by herself; it takes one heck of a man to make her want to sacrifice her independence.
Nikki Rowe
She was a rule breaker, never settling her fierce spirit for things built of structure.
Nikki Rowe
Because the same as any man, women were entitled to a fuss-free sex life should they so choose. And it didn't make us sluts, or whores, or any of the other nasty, misogynistic, double-standard bullshit that got thrown a woman's way when she didn't fit with the traditional ideals of who and what a female should be.
Kylie Scott
She knew it was time, What for was the mystery but focused; she remained.She turned her back on anythingthat no longer served her strengths nor taught her vital lessons with her weaknesses.She said no without explanation & assigned validation back just to parking spots. She was fierce but gentle and authentic in her approach to live even if it meant standing alone.She knew the hard days weren't over but stood proud that she had already survived some of the worst. She laughed in the midst of a mindfuck & gathered her worth with all the pieces of herself that have held her together throughout the years. She knew it was timeWhat for was the mystery, but focused; she remained. She learnt that motherhood provided unconditional love doesn't have boundaries, it's pure in all its forms. Family are rare connections.Friendships are like shoes, not all will fit but when some do it's like you have won the lotto. She learnt that every love was different and how important it was to keep her heart open for the possibility of being able to experience it just one more time.
Nikki Rowe
Like a wolf, she lived by instinct.
Nikki Rowe
You cannot wear every expectation. Consider putting aside one's that don't fit.
Bozena Zawisz
You cannot wear every expectation. Consider putting aside ones that don't fit.
Bozena Zawisz
Insecurity is disconnecting from what inspires you and taking on board an external point of reference.
Bozena Zawisz
Well, cast your mind back to the books he wrote. What is the one theme that keeps recurring from book to book? It is that the woman doesn’t fall in love with the man. The man may or may not love the woman; but the woman never loves the man. What do you think that theme reflects? My guess, my highly informed guess, is that it reflects his life experience. Women didn’t fall for him—not women in their right senses. They inspected him, maybe they even tried him our. Then they moved on.
J.M. Coetzee
Radical feminist theorists do not seek to make gender a bit more flexible, but to eliminate it. They are gender abolitionists, and understand gender to provide the framework and rationale for male dominance. In the radical feminist approach, masculinity is the behaviour of the male ruling class and femininity is the behaviour of the subordinate class of women. Thus gender can have no place in the egalitarian future that feminism aims to create.
Sheila Jeffreys
Prioritise self-care & incorporate a MINIMUM of 60 mins 'ME TIME' into your daily routine. YES THERE ARE enough hours in the day. NO EXCUSES.
Miya Yamanouchi
When a woman has not received much flattery in her life, she will be seduced.
Melina Marchetta
Are you listening, Jasper? Sometimes you'll be walking in the city late at night, and a woman walking in front of you will spin her head around and then cross the street simply because some members of your gender rape women and molest children!
Steve Toltz
The self-esteem of western women is founded on physical being (body mass index, youth, beauty). This creates a tricky emphasis on image, but the internalized locus of self-worth saves lives. Western men are very different. In externalizing the source of their self-esteem, they surrender all emotional independence. (Conquest requires two parties, after all.) A man cannot feel like a man without a partner, corporation, team. Manhood is a game played on the terrain of opposites. It thus follows that male sense of self disintegrates when the Other is absent.
Antonella Gambotto-Burke
The clue to everything a man should love and fear in her was there right from the start in the ironic smile that primed and swelled the archery of her full lips. There was pride in that smile and confidence in the set of her fine nose. Without understanding why I knew beyond question that a lot of people would mistake her pride for arrogance and confuse her confidence with impassivity. I didn't make that mistake. My eyes were lost swimming floating free in the shimmering lagoon of her steady even stare. Her eyes were large and spectacularly green. It was the green that trees are in vivid dreams. It was the green that the sea would be if the sea were perfect.
Gregory David Roberts
I am woman, hear me roar.
Helen Reddy
She has fought many wars, most internal. The ones that you battle alone, for this, she is remarkable. She is a survivor.
Nikki Rowe
And in the act of making things, just by living their daily lives, they also make history. Knitting is clothing made in spare moments, or round the fire, whenever women gathered together... It's something to celebrate-clothes made in love and service, something women have always done.
Anne Bartlett
The most cursory examination of even the most progressive organs of information reveals a curious inability to recognize women as newsmakers, unless they are young or married to a head of state or naked or pregnant by some triumph of technology or perpetrators or victims of some hideous crime or any combiniation of the above. Women's issues are often disguised as people issues, unless they are relegated to the women's pages which amazingly still suvive. Senior figures are all male; even the few women who are deemed worthy of obituaries are shown in images from their youth, as if the last fourty years of their lives have been without achievement of any kind. If you analyse the by-lines in your morning paper, you will see that the senior editorial staff are all older men, supported by a rabble of junior females, the infinitely replacesable 'hackettes'.
Germaine Greer
Men were always quick to believe in the madness of women.
Alison Goodman
There are those dreamers who make excuses for why they aren't passionate about or creating anything to match their desires and then there's those dreamers who stay up late just to finish a goal that will get them up the next set of stairs. We all have dreams but not everyone makes it a reality.
Nikki Rowe
Never question yourself to satisfy the comfort of those living blindly by the false masks of life.
Nikki Rowe
We were characters out of a movie. We were thoroughly alive. And we were absolutely beautiful.
Krystal Sutherland
If they criticise you before they cheer you on, they are not your people. Simple.
Nikki Rowe
It is one thing to lose people you love. It is another to lose yourself. That is a greater loss.
Donna Goddard
Solitude is where I place my chaos to rest and awaken my inner peace.
Nikki Rowe
You are here, alive and awake and for whatever reasons you have fought your battles, it's time to start focusing on what strengths pulled you up when the entire world had knocked you down. That's where the virtue in self grows.
Nikki Rowe
What is Science Fiction? It is the absence of governance and political arrangements in worlds where advanced technology marches onwards. Petty politics and primal instincts continue to dominate while scientific advancement continues. This is our problem today as well: our brightest minds devote themselves to science but shun governance and politics. So as in each catastrophe conjured and contemplated in science fiction, we run the risk of cosmic destruction, lest our greatest minds turn to resolving the outstanding problems of politics and governance first.
Usman W. Chohan
If we shrug our shoulders at the avoidable suffering of the weak and the poor, of those who are getting exploited and ripped off, we are not the left.
Peter Singer
There is an understandable aversion to risk, and a reluctance to plan too far ahead: the modern electorate wants instant gratification and simplistic, populist solutions.
Mungo MacCallum
The family was serious about education; after dinner, Fred was known to issue volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica to his children and guests for a little light reading.
Mungo MacCallum
Reminded that the Commonwealth was already involved in pre-school and university education, Chifley replied: “That’s different – they’re for kids before they’ve got souls and after they’ve lost them.
Mungo MacCallum
...the opportunity for overthrowing capitalism has passed – Labor governments are the hope of the world.” From that time his commitment to the ALP was unquestioned.
Mungo MacCallum
But perhaps his outstanding contribution to Australian politics was that, after a lifetime of switching sides, he put in place the basic two-party structure we have today: Labor versus anti-Labor. The anti-Labor parties have had many names, but always the same policy: to keep Labor out of office.
Mungo MacCallum
They [left-wingers] willy-nilly throw around the accusation of Nazism and comparisons to Hitler whenever confronted by any opposition, yet they are today's Nazis in their determination to shut down by threats or violence free speech and assembly.
Steve McCann
...sometimes offering a quality daily opinion about what’s going on in American politics feels like trying to compose a beautiful symphony using only the recorded screams of psychiatric patients.
Caitlin Johnstone
Political stress is always apt to shrink the private arena and attach it on to the public
Robert Hughes