Richard Flanagan Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  Richard Flanagan (2014). “The Narrow Road to the Deep North: A novel”, p.38, Vintage

  53 Copy quote

• A happy man has no past, while an unhappy man has nothing else.

  Richard Flanagan

  Past, Men, Unhappy

  Richard Flanagan (2014). “The Narrow Road to the Deep North: A novel”, p.14, Vintage

  21 Copy quote

• 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, Evil

  Richard Flanagan (2016). “Gould's Book of Fish”, p.423, Random House

  15 Copy quote

• Love is a glimpse of hope. To love is to hope. When we abandon hope, we cease to exist.

  Richard Flanagan

  Love Is, Glimpse, Abandon

  4 Copy quote

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

  Richard Flanagan

  Mean, One Sentence, Sentences

  Richard Flanagan (2014). “The Narrow Road to the Deep North: A novel”, p.141, Vintage

  13 Copy quote

• 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, Hate, Lying

  16 Copy quote

• Writing about sex at length is a bit like describing mastication at length. It's the causes and the consequences and the meaning of it that are interesting, not the anatomical descriptions.

  Richard Flanagan

  Sex, Writing, Interesting

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  9 Copy quote

• What reality was ever made by realists?

  Richard Flanagan

  Reality, Realist, Made

  Richard Flanagan (2014). “The Narrow Road to the Deep North: A novel”, p.32, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• Writing reminds you that you're never alone. Writing and reading is to be optimistic.

  Richard Flanagan

  Art, Reading, Writing

  4 Copy quote

• We have a very foolish notion in Western countries that progress delivers freedom. But progress doesn't necessarily bring moral virtue.

  Richard Flanagan

  Country, Progress, Moral

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Men, Giving

  7 Copy quote

• Writing is not lying, nor is it theft. It is a journey and search for transparency between one’s words and one’s soul.

  Richard Flanagan

  Art, Lying, Writing

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  "Man Booker prize-winner Richard Flanagan's acceptance speech in full" by Richard Flanagan, www.theguardian.com. October 14, 2014.

  7 Copy quote

• I do feel like a fraud a lot of the time because I've never been interested in people who say 'I'm a writer', 'I'm an artist'. Too much is made of the role and not enough of the work. We are such a celebrity-driven age and a status-driven age, that the status becomes more important than the actual work.

  Richard Flanagan

  Artist, People, Important

  4 Copy quote

• Murder and hate are as deeply buried in the human heart as love, perhaps more so, and in truth they're rather entwined, and if you tried to separate them, you'd be missing something important and human.

  Richard Flanagan

  Hate, Heart, Missing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  6 Copy quote

• A writer has to stand outside the page. It's not for the writer to shed tears onto the pages for these characters. It's not for him to suffer or to laugh or to experience ecstasy or agony in the manner of the characters on the pages.

  Richard Flanagan

  Character, Agony, Laughing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• I think sometimes writers must attempt to communicate the incommunicable, because, whether they wish it or not, they're the ones to whom it falls.

  Richard Flanagan

  Fall, Thinking, Wish

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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, Hands, Years

  Richard Flanagan (2014). “The Narrow Road to the Deep North: A novel”, p.233, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• I think writing should be about change.

  Richard Flanagan

  Writing, Thinking, Should

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• It's a sin for a writer to go looking for camels to put into his or her pages. I only want details that are the story.

  Richard Flanagan

  Camels, Details, Stories

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  5 Copy quote

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

  Richard Flanagan

  Giving Up, Survival, Path

  Richard Flanagan (2014). “The Narrow Road to the Deep North: A novel”, p.184, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• The monsters demand less of you as a writer because they're probably closer to who you are.

  Richard Flanagan

  Who You Are

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• When forging money, I had always salved my conscience by concluding that I was merely extending the lie of commerce.

  Richard Flanagan

  Lying, Commerce, Extending

  7 Copy quote

• I had some bad jobs when I was young. Writing is not one of them. If you're fortunate enough to reach my age, to still be writing, you have to be grateful, and I am. I've been lucky. For many years, all I've done is writing, and it's all I've ever wanted to do.

  Richard Flanagan

  Jobs, Grateful, Writing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• I think it's always wrong of writers to make too much of the pains of their labors, because most people have much worse jobs and suffer such indignities and hardships.

  Richard Flanagan

  Jobs, Pain, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

Page 1 of 2

← Prev

1

2

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin