“All migrants leave their pasts behind, although some try to pack it into bundles and boxes-but on the journey something seeps out of the treasured mementoes and old photographs, until even their owners fail to recognize them, because it is the fate of migrants to be stripped of history, to stand naked amidst the scorn of strangers upon whom they see rich clothing, the brocades of continuity and the eyebrows of belonging..”

“It would be pointless to deny that some crime in Australia is linked to migrant communities. A factor here is that many migrants come from countries where the government trusts none of its citizens to tell the truth and demands proof for everything. The Australian system, where the authorities generally assume that a citizen is telling the truth, but provides penalties if they are then caught lying, tempts some migrants into illegal acts...”

“Some things you can never leave behind. They don't belong to the past. They belong to you.”

“The immappable world of our journey. A pass in the mountains. A bloodstained stone. The marks of steel upon it. Names carved in the corrosible lime among stone fishes and ancient shells. Things dimmed and dimming. The dry sea floor. The tools of migrant hunters. The dreams encased upon the blades of them. The peregrine bones of a prophet. The silence. The gradual extinction of rain. The coming of night.”

“The Purpose of Philosophy is to fall in Love. To strip the world of all its clothes, and fall in Love with it as it stand before you completely naked.”

“He knew that his father had finally run hard enough and long enough to wear down the frontiers between the worlds, he had run clear out of his skin and into the arms of his wife, to whom he had proved, once and for all, the superiority of his love. Some migrants are happy to depart.”