And I found both literature and the church very dramatic presences in the world of the 1950s.

But 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.

Personal finances are like people’s personal health, crucial and tragic to the sufferer but tedious to the listener.

And 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.

It 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.

Coitus is random, children are definite.

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