“Ideally, alcohol should be consumed in private. I dislike going to the pub, becoming jolly and ending up talking to people I would rather see injected with bleach.”

“I seem to feel ashamed of going out and getting merry - I find it oddly humiliating - but I'm quite happy to sit here like some dipsomaniac and become maudlin. For me, that is cool behaviour. Once you realise you're going to be on your own for the next few decades, it seems as pleasurable a way as any to pass the years.”

“Perhaps you don't have to do anything wrong for someone to reject you.”

“No one liked to get too upset in WA's capital, a genuine hindrance to Perth forging its own identity. Less than two hundred years old, its unremarkable history and unceasing niceness had combined to apparently stupify its populace. Perth was at least two hours behind the Eastern states but everyone knew it was really dragging behind by years.”

“God, he loved being a bloke. He loved it so much. He wouldn't be a woman for all the money in the world.”

“Perthites were like the Swan River's jellyfish - small pink blobs adrift in a warm environment.”

“Are you ready to try to tame the Wrath?”