269 Quotes by Richard Flanagan

I'm afraid a lot of people have lost a lot of money over the years betting on me.

As a novelist, you have to be free. Books can't be an act of filial duty.

What reality was ever made by realists?

Companies that are terrifying to a writer are companies like Amazon.

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.

Generally, literary prizes are significant not for who the winner is but the discussion they create around books.

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.

Yep, I often lit the barbie with old drafts.

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.