Jackie French

“With life came loss. The war and the years since had taught her that. There's be sadness in her life to come, as well as happiness. Even the most blessed lives had both. She'd live them as they came.”

“You're a heroin Flinty McAlpine. I reckon you can do anything you set your mind to.”

“At least in a book I am away from my body for a while. But I want to do things, not just read about them. I want my life.”

“They'd manage. Her ghost from the future had said so. He'd been right about the bad coming. Now she had to trust good would come as well.”

“I think my body knew before my mind did. Or maybe I just refused to listen to what I knew.”

“Why is it that you can bear pain, but someone's kindness makes you cry?”

“I think of pain differently now. There is pain that hurts, pain that is so bad you can no longer feel it. Your body just says 'hold on'.”

“You get through bad things - I know, enough bad things have happened to me already. But I don't think getting through one bad time makes it any easier to deal with the next one. If anything, it's worse, because there is happiness to remember.”

“Life should be good - Life should be very, very good - and the only duty we have to the dead is to make it good for ourselves and other people.”

“Have you noticed how every tree is different here? All twisted by the wind and snow, but if that was all, they should have been twisted in the same way. It's as though every tree has made up its own mind exactly how it wants to grow.”

“Maybe everyone is crazy up in these mountains. Maybe the air up here makes you absurd, the scent of flowers and rock and snow. And I've never spoken like that to anyone in my life before. You're my only friend here, you know that? And you're fifty years away.”

“What was war really like? What vast crack had buried Jeff down in the mud, had sent Andy off with cattle? What had changed her best friend so much he could barely look at her now?”

“Dad called this the shadow time. The sun sucks colour from the world, he'd said. He'd taught her to see the softer colours of the dusk, the green and orange bark, the purple shadows. At times like this Flinty felt her edges vanish, leaving her part of the mountains, like the wallaby pulling wonga vine down from a thorn bush, or the sleepy possum peering from a tree.”

“I waved and cried and smiled at the same time like Mum and Mrs Mack, so Sandy and Jeff remember us smiling not sobbing as they left.”

“We're all bits that the war didn't take, Flinty thought, gazing at the stranger's back. But those left behind had a right to know more about the beast who'd chewed their lives and spat the remnants out.”

“Lady Dance's music wasn't a magic charm. I'd misunderstood. We had all failed to understand. The song and dance didn't stop us dying. It just stopped the fear of death swallowing us up while we were still alive. 'Rejoice,' came the soft voice of Lady Dance in my mind. 'Watch the moon and stars...' Death had ruled my life till I met Lady Dance. Her dance had set me free.”

“Dance, my darling dance! If you dance then death can't catch you! Nothing bad can touch you! Dance!”

“Morning: Slept.Afternoon: Slept.Evening: Ate grass.Night: Ate grass. Decided grass is boring. Scratched. Hard to reach the itchy bits.Slept.”