Thomas was my true name but everyone knew me as Mick, except my mother, who knew me as definitely Michael.

I 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 was my true name but everyone knew me as Mick, except my mother, who knew me as definitely Michael.

The principle was, death should not be entered like some snug harbor. It should be an unambiguous refusal to surrender.

In a way Australia is like Catholicism. The company is sometimes questionable and the landscape is grotesque. But you always come back.

He 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.

And I think my sexuality was heavily repressed by the church, by the, you know, the design of the mortal sins.