Richard Flanagan famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

A good book ... leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own soul.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Book #Soul #Good Book
A happy man has no past, while an unhappy man has nothing else.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Men #Past #Unhappy
There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Mean #One Sentence #Sentences
The idea of the past is as useless as the idea of the future. Both could be invoked by anybody about anything. There is never any more beauty than there is now. There is no more joy or wonder or sorrow than there is now, nor perfection, nor any more evil nor any more good than there is now.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Past #Ideas #Perfection
I do not share the pessimism of the age about the novel. They are one of our greatest spiritual, aesthetic and intellectual inventions. As a species it is story that distinguishes us, and one of the supreme expressions of story is the novel. Novels are not content. Nor are they are a mirror to life or an explanation of life or a guide to life. Novels are life, or they are nothing.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Spiritual #Mirrors #Expression
The journey is long, the road is dark and frightening, but together we can reach our destination: the Tasmania of which we all dream, where all are welcome and all prosper, made no longer of lies but truth, built not of rich men's hate but our love for our island and for each other.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Dream #Lying #Hate
When forging money, I had always salved my conscience by concluding that I was merely extending the lie of commerce.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Lying #Commerce #Conscience
One cannot distinguish between human and non-human acts. One cannot point, one cannot say this man here is a man and that man there is a devil.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Men #Devil #Humans
We remember nothing. Maybe for a year or two. Maybe most of a life, if we live. Maybe. But then we will die, and who will ever understand any of this? And maybe we remember nothing most of all when we put our hands on our hearts and carry on about not forgetting.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Heart #Years #Two
Writing is not lying, nor is it theft. It is a journey and search for transparency between oneâ€™s words and oneâ€™s soul.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Lying #Writing #Journey
Writing reminds you that you're never alone. Writing and reading is to be optimistic.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Art #Reading #Optimistic
What reality was ever made by realists?
-- Richard Flanagan

#Reality #Realist #Made
The path to survival was to never give up on the small things.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Giving Up #Survival #Path
Is it easier for a man to live his life again as a fish, than to accept the wonder of being human? So alone, so frightened, so wanting for what we are afraid to give tongue to.
-- Richard Flanagan

#Men #Giving #Tongue

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