And I think my sexuality was heavily repressed by the church, by the, you know, the design of the mortal sins.

So I was very close to ordination. I was delighted to be ordained a deacon, which is the last step between, before becoming a priest. But then it all fell apart.

Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.

The List is Life.

But I was also a brat. I used to belong to a gang that went looking for fights with other gangs.

But in practice Australia - the pluralism of Australia - sorry the sectarianism to an extent stopped at the time you took your uniform off after coming home from school.

I must apologise because I know all writers have memories of being on the outer because it's the children on the side of the playground who become the dangerous writers.

Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't.

The principle was, death should not be entered like some snug harbor. It should be an unambiguous refusal to surrender.

It's only when you abandon your ambitions that they become possible.

In a way Australia is like Catholicism. The company is sometimes questionable and the landscape is grotesque. But you always come back.

I'll Die For Your Sins If You Live For mine.

No poem ever bought a hamburger, or not too many.

We don't believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true.

I wish I could help you" I whisper.You are, " he murmurs against my knee. "just dont leave me, okay? Everyone leaves me.

Lists are a form of power.

There's some nastiness, there's some meanness there. There's something going on in the mosques and other places.

Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing.

Our human weakness is protected by the assistance of the Angels and...in all our perils, provided faith remain with us, we are defended by the aid of spiritual powers.

Men value things in three ways: as useful, as pleasant or sources of pleasure, and as excellent, or as intrinsically admirable or honorable.

The audience swelled to six in the end and we all huddled in a corner.