I'm not saying this in a condescending kind of way, but it's quite simple: The making of America was a heroic thing. Australia has a much murkier, much more complex view of its history. It's just full of all these open wounds we don't really know what to do with.

You write a scene, and it works or it doesn't. It's immediate.

If you look around, complacency is the great disease of your autumn years, and I work hard to prevent that.

I've spent my life butting my head against other people's lack of imagination.

Moving to the country is a very bold thing to do. You can have vague romantic notions about doing that, but in actuality, it can be a terrifying thing.

Sometimes the song isn't strong enough to contain the fiction, because memories are fictions.

Your limitations make you the wonderful disaster you most probably are.