Quotessence
Home / Topics / Outback Quotes

Outback Quotes

Browse 10 quotes about Outback.

Outback Quotes

“And you wouldn't believe what he said then, Tom Berry whispered to his enraptured audience. He said, he and his family saw no value whatsoever in all that gold. He said real treasure was a fresh water spring. He said that the real jewels of the earth were gooseberries that grow on trees. He said a good dig in his world is when you stick a fist down a bubble in the mud and find a long-necked turtle to grab hold of. He said true wealth isn't having your pockets filled with coin but your belly filled with white turtle flesh cooked in its juices, shelled down on a bed of coals. He said that the only use for gold was to glitter, and he said glitter of gold was like the glittering smiles of us white men he'd seen in town, dressed in expensive clothes. He said that gold can't be trusted. He said we've all got the gold disease and it rots our hearts. It poisons us. He said it changes who we are, how we behave. [...] He said the long-neck turtle didn't do that, Tom Berry said. He said that the turtle was a gift from the earth that kept on giving. He said he'd rubbed turtle fat on the chests of sick infants to make them strong again. He said the oil and meat from a single turtle can keep a dying elder alive to see an extra month of sunrises. And then he asked me if I thought a month of sunrises was worth more or less than the box of gold that rested in the hole below us. I said, "It depended on how you spent the gold and how you spent the month of sunrises." And Longcoat Bob smiled at that. And he pointed again at Tom Berry's chest and said, "Good heart, Tom Berry. You speak of good things that can come from gold.”

GoldAustraliaGold RushGreetOutbackMining Town
Book:All Our Shimmering Skies
Create image

“When you travel by road in the west you travel with a cohort of dust which streams up from your tyres and rolls away in a disintegrating funnel, defining the currents of air your vehicle sets in motion … And the heat is unthinkable, no matter how widely the windows are open, and the sweat streams off your body and into your socks, and if there are a number of people in the car their body stenches mingle disagreeably”

AustraliaOutback
Book:Wake in Fright
Create image

“Even if I had convict ancestry, I wouldn’t be ashamed of it. As far as I’m concerned, the real criminals back in those days weren’t twelve-year-old boys nicking a loaf of bread or a pair of socks to ward off hunger and blisters. No, it was those who exploited them; keeping the battler in the gutter while they sat around in their manors, sipping tea and admiring portraits of their toffee-nosed great grandfathers.”

HorrorShort StoryGhost StoryOutback
Book:Hoffman's Creeper and Other Disturbing Tales
Create image