Tim Winton Quotes

“It's funny, but you never really think much about breathing. Until it's all you ever think about.”

“It’s how I fill the time when nothing’s happening. Thinking too much, flirting with melancholy.”

Source: Breath

“I knew I'd failed a test whose rules I didn't yet understand.”

Source: Breath

“I suspect I only really liked her because she liked me first.”

Source: Breath (2008), Ch.18 - p.90

“It's one thing to think someone's stupid. And fair enough if you need them to be. But you can't go banking on it. That's a mug's game.”

Source: Breath (2008), Ch.18 - p.89

“I knew from hunting food the thing you need most of isn't water or ammo, it's patience.”

Part III, Ch.5 - p.250
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

Tim Winton Quotes

“Still you can't keep doing the coulda and the woulda and the shoulda. And if there's one thing I know it's this. Doesn't matter how smart you are, or even how careful or lucky, there's some mistakes you just keep making over and over.”

Part III, Ch.5 - p.248
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

“I suspect that God is what you do, not what or who you believe in. When you do right, Jaxie, when you make good - well, then you are an instrument of God. Then you are joined to the divine, to the life force, to life itself. That's what I believe. That's what I hope for. And it's what I have missed. Think of it this way. When somebody does me a kindness, it enlarges me, adds to my life, you see? And not only mine - it adds to all life.”

Part III, Ch.4 - p.238, 239
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

“There isn't one thing in the world hot and hard as knowing there's someone waiting, coming, pressing, wanting you.”

Part III, Ch.3 - p.233
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

“Our stories. We store them where moth and rust destroy. We're precious about them, no? Not because we treasure them at all, but because it's safer to hold them close. Am I reading you right? Do we have that much in common?”

Part III, Ch.1 - p.199
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

“Sometimes it's a mighty struggle to know what's real and what's just . . . a mirage. You understand?”

Part II, Ch.1 - p.134
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

“And you know someone's special when you never get enough of them.”

"Yeah," I said.
Part II, Ch.1 - p.132
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

“I didn't even know why I liked her. She was just there. I was used to her.”

Part I, Ch.9 - p.83
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

“Mum said school mighta been different for me if I only give a damn. Maybe it was wasted on me like the teachers said. I didn't have any philosophy in me then, so I didn't know what to listen for. Most of it was pointless crap. Don't reckon I met a single wise person all the years I stayed but like I say, I wasn't paying close attention. And the thing is I miss it a bit. That's something I never thought I'd hear myself say. I didn't know what I was, what I could do. Except the lame things I did do.”

Part I, Ch.9 - p.77
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

“Honestly, sometimes you'd rather be a dog. A mutt doesn't torture itself with thinking.”

Part I, Ch.6 - p.43
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

“Tomorrow'll be a new day. Which is really the same miserable fucking day all over again.”

Part I, Ch.5 - p.37
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

“I should have known earlier to always live like that.”

Part I, Ch.2 - p.9 [Page numbers per the Picador 2018 UK paperback.]
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

Tim Winton book In the Winter Dark

Source: Novels, In the Winter Dark (1988), Ch.11 - p.109

“It does you good to be tenants. It reminds you of your own true position in the world.”

Tim Winton book Cloudstreet

Part 10, section 15 - p.416
Novels, Cloudstreet (1991)

“Ambition, Rose. It squeezes us into corners and turns out ugly shapes.”

Tim Winton book Cloudstreet

Part 8, section 2 - p.293
Novels, Cloudstreet (1991)

“You spend your whole life trying to work out where you fit.”

“It only takes one thing to make you unhappy.”

Source: Novels, That Eye, the Sky (1986), Ch.4 - p.25

“Hoping is what people do when they're too lazy to do anything else.”

Source: Novels, That Eye, the Sky (1986), Ch.2 - p.11 [Page numbers per the Penguin Books Australia 1987 paperback edition.]

Tim Winton book Cloudstreet

Part 5, section 19 - p.175
Novels, Cloudstreet (1991)

“Though it seemed so beautiful, the world around us was eternally dangerous. The price of spiritual freedom, we learnt, was eternal vigilance. Such a high price for so long.”

“The past is in us, and not behind us. Things are never over.”

Short story, 'Damaged Goods' - p.60
Short stories, The Turning (2004)

“All the big things hurt, the things you remember. If it doesn't hurt it's not important.”

Short story, 'Aquifer' - p.53
Short stories, The Turning (2004)

“It's a survival thing, making yourself a small target.”

Short story, 'Abbreviation' - p.26
Short stories, The Turning (2004)