“And so Deb is the only person in the world who gives a rusty possum fart whether I live or die.”

“I played possum. I did this, as the possum does, out of fear.”

“A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he only ought to consider whether he is doing right or wrong.”

“You're going to go living. Because living is the challenge, Josie. Dying is so easy. Sometimes it only takes ten seconds to die. But living? That can take eighty years and you do something in that time, whether it's giving birth to a baby or being a housewife or a barrister or a soldier. You've accomplished something. To throw that away at such a young age, to have no hope, is the biggest tragedy.”

“A person who discreetly farts in an elevator is not a divine being, and a man needs to know this.”

“A person who reads lives a thousand lives. A person who reads not, lives only one.”