“Three days after their wedding they were standing at the base of Liffey Falls, at the brisk death of winter, watching an airborne river thrash its way earthward. The water tumbled through high ridges, crowded with the princes of the island's wetter wildernesses: blackheart sassafras, dappled leatherwoods, contortions of mossy myrtles. Giant stringybarks rose above them all, their gum-topped crowns fighting for space in the clouds. The forest loomed, wet-dark and thickly green in the morning dew, and through the ancient roots of its trees the Liffey ran and broke and fell to splash the boots of the gazing newlyweds. p.68” ForestRainforestWaterfallTasmaniaLiffey Book:Limberlost Source: Limberlost
“Tracker Marks was of a different opinion. Though he seemed more white than a white man, he had no time for their ways. For him his dress, his deportment was no different than staying downwind in the shadows of trees when hunting, blending into the world of those he hunted, rather than standing out from it. Once he had excelled at the emu dance & the kangaroo dance; then his talent led him to the whitefella dance, only now no-one was left of his tribe to stand around the fire & laugh & praise his talent for observation & stealthy imitation. The whites have no law, he told Capois Death, no dreaming. Their way of life made no sense whatsoever. Still, he did not hate them or despise them. They were stupid beyond belief, but they had a power, & somehow their stupidity & their power were, in Tracker Marks’s mind, inextricably connected. But how? he asked Capois Death. How can power & ignorance sleep together? Questions to which Capois Death had no answer.” RacePowerIgnoranceCivilizationStupidityAustraliaColonialismWhite ManImperialismRace RelationsWestern CivilizationAboriginalAboriginal CultureAboriginalsTasmania Author:Richard Flanagan
“The few survivors were hounded into an evangelical concentration camp, where well-meaning but not particularly open-minded missionaries tried to indoctrinate them in the ways of the modern world. The Tasmanians were instructed in reading and writing, Christianity and various ‘productive skills’ such as sewing clothes and farming. But they refused to learn. They became ever more melancholic, stopped having children, lost all interest in life, and finally chose the only escape route from the modern world of science and progress – death.” Tasmania Book:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Source: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“One such man, an islander named Drew, strode into a Launceston rooming house looking—and here Srinivas suddenly became awkward—for the services of a good woman. I nearly laughed: from all I’d heard, no one would seek a good woman in Launceston.” HumourTasmania Book:The Burning Island Source: The Burning Island
“Van Diemen's land enjoys the great advantage of being free from a native population [Observation made by Charles Darwin, Feb 1836]” DarwinTasmaniaAborigines Author:James Boyce
“After an hour of sodden stomping they saw ghostly figures beckoning them through the dense cloud. Highland snow gums, colour-swirled and hardy, and alpine yellow gums, splashed with shades of lemon and olive. Skeletal in the mist. When they reached them, they saw fluorescent pink tags hanging from the twisted artwork of their branches. Orange bike lights hammered into dolerite boulders, beneath flakes of minty lichen. (p.193)” LandscapeTasmaniaBushwalkingNative Vegetation Book:Limberlost Source: Limberlost
“We calculate the amount spent [by Brethren and other anti- Green groups] was between $500,000 and $1 million - that's a huge amount for a state election campaign in Tasmania.” StatesMillionsGroupsHugeAmountElectionGreenCampaignsBrethrenTasmania Author:Bob Brown
“We want to appeal to everyone and get rich quick. We want to be millionaires. I've got this plan to buy Tasmania you see.” WantRichPlansAppealsMillionaireGet RichGet Rich QuickTasmania Author:Angus Young
“To write about business one should be in business, just as in writing about Tasmania one should visit Tasmania.” ShouldWritingTasmania Author:James Cook
“I haven't been to Tasmania. I haven't been to the South Pole, and I haven't been to the North Pole. I want to see the polar bear migration before there are no polar bears. I want to see Glacier National Park before the glacier melts.” WantHavensBearsSouthParksMigrationNational ParksGlaciersPolar BearsNorth PoleTasmania Author:Martha Stewart
“When I was a kid, the world was such a big place, and I had no idea that I would be afforded these great moments in between doing what I love to do. I'm able to actually choose places to go which have intrigued me for the last god knows how many years, and Tasmania's always been one of those places. I see it all and yet I see so little because it's so fast.” KnowsWorldYearsLittlesIdeasMomentsBigsWould BeKidsAbleLastsKnow HowNo IdeaGod KnowsIntriguedPlaces To GoGreat MomentsTasmania Author:Robert Plant
“I'm able to actually choose places to go which have intrigued me for the last god knows how many years, and Tasmania's always been one of those places.” KnowsYearsAbleLastsKnow HowGod KnowsIntriguedPlaces To GoTasmania Author:Robert Plant
“There is that interesting thing that Haughton Forrest was imagining the landscapes. They are so dramatic. They are dark, big, gloomy paintings and he was making them during some of the most ominous massacres in Tasmania. Forrest was recording history but missing the human story.” HumansStoriesBigsDarkInterestingMissingPaintingLandscapeDramaticInteresting ThingsGloomyMassacresOminousTasmania Author:Ben Quilty
“Once upon a time, when men and women hurtled through the air on metal wings, when they wore webbed feet and walked on the bottom of the sea, learning the speech of whales and the songs of the dolphins, when pearly-fleshed and jewelled apparitions of Texan herdsmen and houris shimmered in the dusk on Nicaraguan hillsides, when folk in Norway and Tasmania in dead of winter could dream of fresh strawberries, dates, guavas and passion fruits and find them spread next morning on their tables, there was a woman who was largely irrelevant, and therefore happy.” MenDreamSongPassionNextMorningAirSeaFeetSpeechMen And WomenTablesWingsFruitBottomWinterFolksSpreadMetalsIrrelevantWhalesOnce Upon A TimeDuskDolphinsStrawberriesTexanNorwayApparitionsTasmania Author:A. S. Byatt
“The Montefiores have taken Australia for their own, and there is not a gold field or a sheep run from Tasmania to New South Wales that does not pay them a heavy tribute. They are the real owners of the antipodean continent. What is the good of our being a wealthy nation, if the wealth is all in the hands of German Jews?” IfsDoeRealHandsRunningNationsWealthPayTakenFieldsGoldSouthJewHeavyAustraliaOwnersWealthySheepContinentsTributeWalesTasmania Author:Will Hughes
“The journey is long, the road is dark and frightening, but together we can reach our destination: the Tasmania of which we all dream, where all are welcome and all prosper, made no longer of lies but truth, built not of rich men's hate but our love for our island and for each other.” MenLongMadeDreamTogetherLyingHateDarkRichEnvironmentJourneyBuiltWelcomeIslandsDestinationFrighteningOur LoveRich ManTogether We CanTasmania Author:Richard Flanagan
“The first time I came to the Comedy Festival some nutcase shot a bunch of people in Tasmania. I thought, 'Oh, that's just Tasmania.' The second time I came, some nut shot up Columbine High School. Now I'm here again, and another nut just shot up a high school in Minnesota. If you can't see the connection between me playing the Comedy Festival and mass murder, you're no good at conspiracy theories.” PeopleIfsFirstsSchoolComedyTheoryMassHigh SchoolShotsFirst TimeConnectionsMurderBunchNutsConspiracyFestivalsConspiracy TheoryMinnesotaColumbineTasmania Author:Rich Hall