We have a very foolish notion in Western countries that progress delivers freedom. But progress doesn't necessarily bring moral virtue.

- Richard Flanagan

Love is a glimpse of hope. To love is to hope. When we abandon hope, we cease to exist.

- Richard Flanagan

Murder and hate are as deeply buried in the human heart as love, perhaps more so, and in truth they're rather entwined, and if you tried to separate …

- Richard Flanagan

A happy man has no past, while an unhappy man has nothing else.

- Richard Flanagan

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 th…

- Richard Flanagan

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 inter…

- Richard Flanagan

There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything.

- Richard Flanagan

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 ar…

- Richard Flanagan

Writing is not lying, nor is it theft. It is a journey and search for transparency between one’s words and one’s soul.

- Richard Flanagan