Author: Richard Flanagan

Quotes

My father was a Japanese prisoner of war, a survivor of the Thai-Burma Death Railway, built by a quarter of a million slave labourers in 1943. Between 100,000 and 200,000 died.

My father was a Japanese prisoner of war, a survivor of the Thai-Burma Death Railway, built by a quarter of a million slave labourers in 1943. Between 100,000 and 200,000 died.

- Richard Flanagan

Look at the history of literature, and you find the history of beauty on the one hand and the IOUs on the other.

Look at the history of literature, and you find the history of beauty on the one hand and the IOUs on the other.

- Richard Flanagan

I love words because you can only live one life, but in a novel, you can live a thousand: you contain multitudes.

I love words because you can only live one life, but in a novel, you can live a thousand: you contain multitudes.

- Richard Flanagan

Perhaps the virtue of coming from a place like Tasmania is that you had the great gift of knowing that you were not the centre of things, yet life was no less where you were.

Perhaps the virtue of coming from a place like Tasmania is that you had the great gift of knowing that you were not the centre of things, yet life was no less where you were.

- Richard Flanagan

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

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

- Richard Flanagan

Family matters, friends matter, love matters. Those you love and who love you matter. That's what writing does - it allows you to say all those things.

Family matters, friends matter, love matters. Those you love and who love you matter. That's what writing does - it allows you to say all those things.

- Richard Flanagan

I realised that if I wished to write about the dark and not allow for hope, people would recognise it as false - because hope is the nub of what we are.

I realised that if I wished to write about the dark and not allow for hope, people would recognise it as false - because hope is the nub of what we are.

- Richard Flanagan

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

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

- Richard Flanagan

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