35 Quotes by David Malouf

What else is death but the refusal any longer to grow and suffer change?

Now that spring is no longer to be recognised in blossoms or in new leaves on trees, I must look for it in myself. I feel the ice of myself cracking. I feel myself loosen and flow again, reflecting the world. That is what spring means.

All the things we achieve are things we have first of all imagined.

We’re such contrary creatures.

I write not to record what I think but to discover what I think.

With all those prizes the most interesting thing is getting on to the shortlist, because that tells you who people see as your peers.

He had entered the rough world of men, where a man’s acts follow him wherever he goes in the form of story.

So many things were new. Everything changed. The past would not hold and could not be held.

Words are powerful. They too can be the agents of what is new, of what is conceivable and can be thought and let loose upon the world.