Though, as he was torn into a pink upper air, she was a good craft to ride in, for her belly was firm and her breasts enabled a flying man good hold and emotions of heady safety. . . . Steering her peasant tits he bounded off stars.
Thomas KeneallyHe was one of those men who, even in the years of peace, would have advised his congregation that while God may well be honored by the inflexibility of the pious, he might also be honored by the flexibility of the sensible.
Thomas KeneallyThomas was my true name but everyone knew me as Mick, except my mother, who knew me as definitely Michael.
Thomas KeneallyBut re-reading Voss also demonstrates again that although White wasn't 'a nice man', and indeed wasโperhaps rightlyโscathingly dismissive of my and other Australian writers' work and origins unless they were his friends, he was a genius, and Voss one of the finest works of the modernist era and of the past century.
Thomas KeneallyIn a way Australia is like Catholicism. The company is sometimes questionable and the landscape is grotesque. But you always come back.
Thomas KeneallyThe principle was, death should not be entered like some snug harbor. It should be an unambiguous refusal to surrender.
Thomas KeneallySo I was very close to ordination. I was delighted to be ordained a deacon, which is the last step between, before becoming a priest. But then it all fell apart.
Thomas KeneallyBut in practice Australia - the pluralism of Australia - sorry the sectarianism to an extent stopped at the time you took your uniform off after coming home from school.
Thomas KeneallyIt was so like old times that Henry found himself smiling down at Olek and Mance, playing to her, capable of ignoring the rest. It did seem for those seconds that the earth had at last been pacified by music.
Thomas KeneallyAnd I definitely wanted to be a writer, but I felt a duty now, having used up those educational resources, I felt a duty to the church and my parents to become a priest.
Thomas KeneallyPersonal finances are like peopleโs personal health, crucial and tragic to the sufferer but tedious to the listener.
Thomas KeneallyAnd it is a folly to try to craft a novel for the screen, to write a novel with a screen contract in mind.
Thomas KeneallyAnd I liked pluralist Australia. I got a taste for pluralist Australia. I like, I like Australians and I can't believe that they're going to go to hell because they tell a good dirty joke, you know.
Thomas KeneallyIt is not too fantastic to say that he desired them with some of the absolute passion that characterised the exposed and flaming heart of Jesus which hung on Emilie's wall. Since this narrative has tried to avoid the canonisation of the Herr Direktor, the idea of the sensual Oskar as the desirer of souls has to be proved.
Thomas KeneallyUm, what I found though about the Christian Brothers is this: that they were certainly muscular.
Thomas KeneallyI must apologise because I know all writers have memories of being on the outer because it's the children on the side of the playground who become the dangerous writers.
Thomas KeneallyAnd I think my sexuality was heavily repressed by the church, by the, you know, the design of the mortal sins.
Thomas KeneallySo nonetheless given the importance that was placed on sport in Australia, I wanted to be part of that scene, particularly since I had felt very strongly in my early schooling being marginalised even in the Catholic school.
Thomas KeneallyBut I was also a brat. I used to belong to a gang that went looking for fights with other gangs.
Thomas KeneallyAustralia integrated the - brought on the ships and unleashed in the society the dogs of sectarianism, which had existed in other places - in Glasgow, in Liverpool and of course in Ireland, north and south.
Thomas KeneallyYou know, so I was a weird eccentric kid but I did believe in the power of the word and of the word being made flesh I suppose, which again I suppose came from my temperament as well as my upbringing.
Thomas Keneally