Richard Flanagan quote: "I think if 'The Narrow Road To The Deep North' is one of the high points of Japanese culture, then the experience of my father, who was a slave laborer on the Death Railway, represents one of its low points."

I grew up very strongly with this sense of time being circular: that it constantly returned upon its...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

The past is there, but life is circular. I have a strong sense of the circularity of time.
RICHARD FLANAGAN

I went to study at Oxford University in the 1980s on an imperial scholarship instituted by Cecil Rho...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Men's lives are not progressions, as conventionally rendered in history paintings, nor are they a se...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

If 30 Australians drowned in Sydney Harbour, it would be a national tragedy. But when 30 or more ref...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

John Howard, willing to apologise to home owners for rising interest rates, would not say sorry to A...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

We like love - we love love - but perhaps its only meaning lies in its ubiquitous meaninglessness. W...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Since woodchipping began 32 years ago, Tasmanians have watched as one extraordinary place after anot...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

I hate the way my life has been inexplicably overwhelmed by questionnaires. Life is so much stranger...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Nothing seemed to offer more striking proof to the late Victorian mind of the infernal truth of soci...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

If you choose to take your compass from power, in the end you find only despair. But if you look aro...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

My secret skill is baking bread. My mother was a farmer's daughter and still made bread every da...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Yep, I often lit the barbie with old drafts.
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Logging is an industry driven solely by greed. It prospers with government support and subsidies, an...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Under Malcolm Fraser's Liberal governments in the 1970s, large numbers of refugees fleeing Vietn...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Perhaps the virtue of coming from a place like Tasmania is that you had the great gift of knowing th...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

God gets the great stories. Novelists must make do with more mundane fictions.
RICHARD FLANAGAN

In 1995, the Paul Keating Labor government commissioned an inquiry into the forcible removal of Abor...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

You can be very successful but still struggling financially, and it looked like I'd have to take...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

If war illuminates love, love offers the possibility of allowing some light to be brought back out o...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

I read incessantly, searching for the things that might move me.
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Through the 1990s, the fracturing of Tasmanian Aboriginal politics was given impetus by the ongoing ...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

An unskilled middle-aged man can work in the mines, and it pays well.
RICHARD FLANAGAN

We're a migrant nation made up of people who've been torn out of other worlds, and you'd...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Rainer Maria Rilke was admittedly not a Dockers tagger, but a sort of European equivalent: a German ...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

We live in a material world, not a dramatic one. And truth resides not in melodrama, but in the prec...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

The Bradshaws suggests an extraordinary civilisation that existed long before modern man reached the...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Love stories seek to demonstrate the great truth of love: that we discover eternity in a moment that...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Writing my novel 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North,' I came to conclude that great crimes l...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

I was struck by the way Europeans see history as something neatly linear. For me, it's not that;...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

I love words because you can only live one life, but in a novel, you can live a thousand: you contai...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

After a time he found and opened a book he had been reading that he had expected to end well, a roma...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

I think all novels are contemporary. When people went to see 'Antony-Cleopatra' at the Globe...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

But what reality was ever made by realists?
RICHARD FLANAGAN

My mother hoped I'd be a plumber.
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Within white Australia, there was a growing movement for what was known as reconciliation - a moveme...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

I believe in the verb, not the noun - I am not a writer, but someone compelled to write.
RICHARD FLANAGAN

I never know what I am writing. The moment you know what you're writing, you're writing noth...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Vassals of an outdated ideology unrelated to the real world, they can, when questioned on this issue...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

The tourists had money and we needed it; they only asked in return to be lied to and deceived and to...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Virtue was vanity dressed up and waiting for applause.
RICHARD FLANAGAN

So there you have it: two things & I can't bring them together & they are wrenching me apart...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

In trying to escape the fatality of memory, he discovered with an immense sadness that pursuing the ...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

The idea of the past is as useless as the idea of the future. Both could be invoked by anybody about...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

We remember nothing. Maybe for a year or two. Maybe most of a life, if we live. Maybe. But then we w...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

And his life was now, he felt, one monumental unreality, in which everything that did not matter - p...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Is it easier for a man to live his life again as a fish, than to accept the wonder of being human? S...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

The idea of the past is as useless as the idea of the future. Both could be invoked by anybody about...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

A good book, he had concluded, leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to re...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

Writing is not lying, nor is it theft. It is a journey and search for transparency between one’s w...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

The path to survival was to never give up on the small things.
RICHARD FLANAGAN

A good book ... leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own s...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

He loved his family. But he was not proud of them. Their principal achievement was survival. It woul...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

To have been part of a Pharaonic slave system that had at its apex a divine sun king led him to unde...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

As the cards fluttered to earth, as everyone’s hand was revealed as worthless, as every point won ...
RICHARD FLANAGAN

There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything.
RICHARD FLANAGAN

People think we are such great talkers, but there is so much silence in Ireland about certain issues...
FIONNULA FLANAGAN

The image of Ireland is projected as a male image in the acting world, similar to the way that the w...
FIONNULA FLANAGAN

When I first came to Hollywood, I could not break into movies.
FIONNULA FLANAGAN

I think Irish women are strong as horses, incredibly loyal and for the most part, funny, witty, brig...
FIONNULA FLANAGAN

You've known him how long?" Malcolm asked.
"Since he was a small boy. I firs noticed him when ...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Female adolescence is - universally - an emotionally and psychologically intense period.
CAITLIN FLANAGAN

I'm Irish and always will be, but America has taught me so much. Maybe it's here in the U.S....
FIONNULA FLANAGAN

Mind yourself in that guardroom," Gilan told him. Thorn grinned cheerfully. He never had any stomach...
JOHN FLANAGAN

We had a look at the numbers, but its panels are predominantly wooden and in decline.
ANDREW FLANAGAN

Advertising markets have remained uncertain and short term in the first quarter ... and we are seein...
ANDREW FLANAGAN

It's been a lot of hard work, sweat and tears.
ANDREW FLANAGAN

When that moment arrived, that adrenaline you feel, that carried me through. I was short on the land...
ANDREW FLANAGAN

My mother was very involved with Cesar Chavez's work on behalf of the migrant farm workers in Ca...
CAITLIN FLANAGAN

Fighting positions, please, ladies...'
'That's debatable,' Halt said in an undertone to Will as...
JOHN FLANAGAN

There is no better way to manage than by walking around. Autocracy doesn't work. Talk to people ...
MAURICE FLANAGAN

When you're a kid, you feel invincible. This is an eye-opening experience.
BRENDAN FLANAGAN

That was the icing on the cake so I could go to bed knowing I was under weight.
BRENDAN FLANAGAN

I'm ready for (today). My whole goal has been to leave my mark on Manatee High School wrestling. I'm...
BRENDAN FLANAGAN

Last year was like going to Disney World for the first time. This year, I've got past all the distra...
BRENDAN FLANAGAN

I'm out to prove I deserve to be on the podium. I think I have a legitimate shot of placing top thre...
BRENDAN FLANAGAN

We put a mean streak on our head. We're keeping our mean streak through the state tournament. Just g...
BRENDAN FLANAGAN

I could have been a professional footballer and trialled with Blackburn Rovers. But I snapped my cru...
MAURICE FLANAGAN

We probably have a little wiggle room on that March date, but not much. I'm still hopeful and I'm co...
MIKE FLANAGAN

There is something about the airline industry that really grabbed me.
MAURICE FLANAGAN

When we sign a contract with a vendor, laying out a specific schedule for delivery, we expect it to ...
MIKE FLANAGAN

It's easy to walk away from risk, and you don't actually have to face it. Success is based u...
MAURICE FLANAGAN

If the pill looks any differently than you are normally used to seeing it, different shape, differen...
JERRY FLANAGAN

I view this as putting smaller portfolios into incubators to wait for them to be hatched into higher...
MICHAEL FLANAGAN

The lion's share of those bookings have been taken off the sheets, ... It's only after Fed's move la...
KEVIN FLANAGAN

It swelled up pretty good. But we'll let her get treatment on it and see how it goes.
DON FLANAGAN

There was a roar of delight from the forward bench, and then the bearlike figure of Nils Ropehander ...
JOHN FLANAGAN

I do miss Glasgow but Malibu is home now. I love it here and when I do go back to Scotland it takes ...
TOMMY FLANAGAN

Uphill? There's nothing up the hill," Colly said, trying desperately to work out where this conversa...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Looks like he's lost a guinea and found a farthing," Horace said, then added, unnecessarily, "Will, ...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Does it matter?" Halt asked.
Horace shrugged. "Not really, I suppose. I just wondered why you'...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Horace, when you get older, try to avoid being saddled with an apprentice. Not only are they a damne...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Halt regarded him. He loved Horace like a younger brother. Even like a second son, after Will. He ad...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Isn't that someone we know?" asked Horace. He pointed to where a cloaked figure sat by the side of t...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Never take your eyes off them,” Horace said to Gilan, in an admonishing tone. “Didn’t MacNeil ...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Would you have done that in his place? Would you have left him and gone on?"
"Of course I would...
JOHN FLANAGAN

He shook his head. He didn't know. He couldn't tell when he had woken fully. He walked to the horses...
JOHN FLANAGAN

A hundred people is rather a large handful for the four of us to take on," Malcolm pointed out. "Do ...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Horace’s pulse was racing and adrenaline was surging into his system. But he showed no sign of it....
JOHN FLANAGAN

Now," said Halt, "all I have to do is work out a way of beating these horse-riding devils."
Era...
JOHN FLANAGAN

She didn't like the fact that she had reduced a man – no matter how evil he might be—to a drooli...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Young men!” he snorted to Erak. “They think a pretty face can cure every ill.”
“Some of...
JOHN FLANAGAN

I thought told you to watch where you put your feet," he said accusingly. Erak shrugged.
I did,...
JOHN FLANAGAN

I nearly forgot, Ragnak had a further message for you. He said if we lose this battle and loses his ...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Yes, I'm back," he said, "And look who I ran into."
Horace grinned at him. "i hope you ran into...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Halt?" said Gilan, realization dawning. "You're not seasick are you?"
No," Halt said shortly, n...
JOHN FLANAGAN

He looked up as the party emerged and nickered a soft hello to his master, who was dressed in an unf...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Sometimes," Halt continued, "we tend to expect a little too much of Ranger horses. After all, they a...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Halt waited a minute or two but there was no sound except for the jingling of harness and the creaki...
JOHN FLANAGAN

So I sent Halt to straighten matters out. Thought it might be a good idea to give him something to k...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Will looked up angrily, shaking his head in disbelief.
Will you shut up? he said tautly.
...
JOHN FLANAGAN

That taught us how to block a sword with two knives. But what if an ax man's coming at me?"
Gi...
JOHN FLANAGAN

...at the time, King Herbert felt that to remain safe, the kingdom needed an effective intelligence ...
JOHN FLANAGAN

We certainly would like that to be the case.
MIKE FLANAGAN

I'd say," the Ranger answered after a few seconds' deliberation, "that he'll be heading south now th...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Actually I like the idea of being a Renaissance hack. If tombstones were still in style, I would wan...
DENNIS FLANAGAN

S'mimasen," Alyss said repeatedly as they brushed against passerby.
"What does that mean?" Wil...
JOHN FLANAGAN

We must focus on mathematics in the middle school so students not only will meet state standards, bu...
MIKE FLANAGAN

That's a superior team. We played as hard as we could for 32 minutes, and we just got a little tired...
JON FLANAGAN

Considering the fact we have been thin or illiquid in some areas in the market it wouldn't surprise ...
KEVIN FLANAGAN

Requiring something people cannot afford is not a solution to solving the health care crisis.
JERRY FLANAGAN

He's definitely one of the top five we've ever had here. Bryce is a really good player. He's definit...
MIKE FLANAGAN

What the HMOs can't explain is why premiums are increasing twice as fast as hospital and physician c...
JERRY FLANAGAN

But what if I make a mistake?' Will asked.

Gilan threw back his head and laughed. 'A mist...
JOHN FLANAGAN

There are always risks in battle. It's a dangerous business. The trick is to take the right ones.' [...
JOHN FLANAGAN

I know that Shannon (Miller) has mentioned that it's a good draw. It makes sense. We're the ones who...
PAUL FLANAGAN

I figured if we got the first game it would keep us going. The hits and everything.
JOHN FLANAGAN

The increase in U.S. exports came as a surprise and it's good news. Export demand for U.S. cotton is...
JOHN FLANAGAN

It sounds like a good idea so as not to waste food.
JOHN FLANAGAN

Last weekend gave us confidence that when we bowl like we can, we're a very good team. If we do that...
JOHN FLANAGAN

I just found the line I was comfortable with and stayed with it. I'm left-handed, so the lanes don't...
JOHN FLANAGAN

We will eventually have this place top notch.
JOHN FLANAGAN

Get rid of their mast, knock holes in the hull, then get back on board."
"You want us to sink h...
JOHN FLANAGAN

We can 'borrow' unused capacity from areas where it isn't currently needed and direct it to other ar...
MIKE FLANAGAN

It has more to do with the fact that there could be a delayed vote because of possible military acti...
KEVIN FLANAGAN

There doesn't appear to be the same degree of necessity to move into safe and liquid investments suc...
KEVIN FLANAGAN

U.S. stocks are struggling again today, and that has just added more fuel to the fire. We need a fix...
KEVIN FLANAGAN

We're seeing stocks coming slightly off their highs here.
KEVIN FLANAGAN

Nevertheless, fourth-quarter growth was far more than anybody was looking for, and it is something t...
KEVIN FLANAGAN

We're seeing problems in dollar-yen, but I don't have a good explanation why the dollar is getting h...
KEVIN FLANAGAN

Investor psychology is so fragile that there would be a what-does-the-Fed-see that-we-don't mentalit...
KEVIN FLANAGAN

That's 372 with 15 zeros after it, correct?
KEVIN FLANAGAN

(The Wyskivers) have been very unresponsive to the consumers and we just don't want (them) taking an...
KEVIN FLANAGAN

Unfortunately we don’t have enough industry in Toowoomba (to warrant the huge cost),
KEVIN FLANAGAN

It's wonderful, ... I'm going to immediately send a fax to all the actors in the show. We done good....
FIONNULA FLANAGAN

We continue to see difficulties for the nation's factories. This is a figure that continues to argue...
KEVIN FLANAGAN

Gundar seemed to come to a decision.
"Well, as my old mam used to say, if it looks like a duck...
JOHN FLANAGAN

I think the last couple of months he did exceptionally well. I was very impressed with the way he ha...
MIKE FLANAGAN

Marcus can play anywhere on the floor. He is very, very athletic.
BILL FLANAGAN

We have a lot of brain power in those areas. We think we can build on that.
BILL FLANAGAN

They're not in Pittsburgh; they're not in southwest Pennsylvania. They're working for the competitio...
BILL FLANAGAN

Ah, Signor Halt,' he said uncertainly, 'you are making a joke, yes?'
'He is making a joke, no,'...
JOHN FLANAGAN

At this point we're deeply into contract negotiations. It is going well. I think it's going to be so...
MIKE FLANAGAN

I think he's still figuring out what he's going to do. He kind of inherited somebody else's team.
MIKE FLANAGAN

I think you're seeing an enthusiastic response by the bond market because there appears to be a slig...
KEVIN FLANAGAN

They are totally opposite. The arm motions are completely different. Mentally though, you've got to ...
JOHN FLANAGAN

The sentiment is not as enthusiastic as it was early this week. Investors are starting to realize th...
KEVIN FLANAGAN

Anyone can make a mistake.... It's how they learn from it and recover from it that shows their true ...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Several of them were discussing this in low tones as they waited for Halt to arrive - until they rea...
JOHN FLANAGAN

If everything is done for me... how will I ever learn?
JOHN FLANAGAN

Will raised both eyebrows. 'Well, you learn a new thing everyday,' he said reflectively.

...
JOHN FLANAGAN

We're smart enough and a veteran enough team to know we wouldn't get it all back in the second quart...
BRIAN FLANAGAN

It's a little bit of a gamble starting this early, but from what we've heard everyone is so excited....
BRIAN FLANAGAN

It was probably a good thing for me to see that we weren't executing from bench to floor.
DON FLANAGAN

We have to be able to play the full game. We have to get over being a one-half team. I was really di...
DON FLANAGAN

The good thing about being a basketball team is that you play a lot of games. We have a game against...
DON FLANAGAN

That was a tough game for us.
DON FLANAGAN

Nobody that I talked to wanted to be part of this program.
DON FLANAGAN

They'll go right in there and run something completely different. But they're going to get over that...
DON FLANAGAN

That was a great defensive effort, because Wyoming is a very good team. They set so many screens and...
DON FLANAGAN

This was a tough game for us. I saw so many things I didn't like. They weren't carrying out some thi...
DON FLANAGAN

They believed they were going to be successful and for some reason we didn't believe we were going t...
DON FLANAGAN

They are a very well-coached team with a lot of movement on offense. They drive and dish a lot. They...
DON FLANAGAN

I've taken him to Chicago for the Cubs.
DENNIS FLANAGAN

She's got a really soft touch and is very accurate at getting the ball around the rim, so she gets s...
DON FLANAGAN

I think there is going to be a strong sentiment to run from this.
MIKE FLANAGAN

In an age of specialization people are proud to be able to do one thing well, but if that is all the...
DENNIS FLANAGAN

What we opposed was that federal aid should go to these virtual universities that disguise themselve...
SARAH FLANAGAN

I re-traced your footsteps to that miserable little Tibetan monastery. It was hard to get the monks ...
ANNE FLANAGAN

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that a handful of insurance companies with a strangleh...
JERRY FLANAGAN

Remember no one expects you to be Halt. He's a legend, after all. Haven't you heard? He's eight feet...
JOHN FLANAGAN

These girls have played a lot of basketball, so they knew they could come back and win.
GLEN FLANAGAN

It was enough to get it done tonight. I wish we had played better, but we're going (to state) and th...
GLEN FLANAGAN

Our pressure got to them in the second quarter.
GLEN FLANAGAN

We've been waiting to play like this for a long time. Good time to do it.
GLEN FLANAGAN

We played basketball like it is supposed to be played. We moved the ball, we played good defense, we...
GLEN FLANAGAN

We'd keep pulling away and they'd reel us back in.
GLEN FLANAGAN

It was a physical game. The refs let a lot go, the teams were banging on each other.
GLEN FLANAGAN

Someone put a lid on the bucket. We missed all 17 of our 3-pointers. We were 17-of-74 from the field...
GLEN FLANAGAN

We were really flat and had no energy in the first quarter. They (the Hawks) jumped on us hard and t...
GLEN FLANAGAN

We were balanced; it was a fun game. It was a packed house. Any time we tried to pull away, they wou...
GLEN FLANAGAN

That's for another time,
FIONNULA FLANAGAN

We had a wild night out with them in Wilmington (North Carolina, where filming took place).
FIONNULA FLANAGAN

There are plenty of roles for older women. They just don't happen to be the roles that normally carr...
FIONNULA FLANAGAN

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
FIONNULA FLANAGAN

After more than 30 years ... sometimes the only thing that you have is the remaining teeth or very f...
GARY FLANAGAN

You're an apprentice, you're not ready to think yet.
-Ranger's Apprentice
JOHN FLANAGAN

What the devil is Chocho?' Will whispered.
Horace's grin broadened. 'You are. It's what the men...
JOHN FLANAGAN

The two girls disappeared into the stern cabin once more. Will watched them go, then asked Halt, 'An...
JOHN FLANAGAN

Gundar isn't so much a ship's captain as a reformed pirate and a heathen." [Evanlyn] looked apologet...
JOHN FLANAGAN

I think if 'The Narrow Road To The Deep North' is one of the high points of Japanese culture, then the experience of my father, who was a slave laborer on the Death Railway, represents one of its low points.

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Richard Flanagan

I think if 'The Narrow Road To The Deep North' is one of the high points of Japanese culture, then the experience of my father, who was a slave laborer on the Death Railway, represents one of its low points.

Richard Flanagan

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