If the regular pay was important to him, the opportunity to learn was of even greater long-range significance.

Go that way, past the viaduct, and the wops will jump you, or chase you into Jew town...Polacks would stomp on you...Micks will shower you with Irish confetti from the brickyards.

and there was a beautiful view but nobody could see cause everybody on the island was saying look at me

Very small errors in our understanding of the Gospel can result in very big problems.

It might be a little bit crazy, even. Like, for real crazy. Not just 'oh isn't that charming and endearing' crazy but 'wow that might be a deep-seated psychological issue' crazy.

Sometimes our breakthrough begins when we refuse to be impressed with the size of our problem.

Graveyards remind us of the vanity of all human endeavour.

In volume terms, the Tasmanian wine industry is as tiny as its potential is large.

I am a better novelist than a poet, playwright, or essayist.

I don't even think of going to Europe as going to another country now.

When you're a kid, you listen to what your family is listening to. For my family, it was bluegrass.

If a child goes the wrong way, it is not the child who is to be blamed; it is the parents who are responsible.