The Riders Quotes

“The whole underneath of Paris was an ant nest, Metro tunnels, sewer shafts, catacombs, mines, cemeteries. She'd been down in the city of bones where skulls and femurs rose in yellowing walls. Right down there, win the square before them. through a dinky little entrance, were the Roman ruins like honeycomb. The trains went under the river. There were tunnels people had forgotten about. It was a wonder Paris stood up at all. The bit you saw was only half of it. Her skin burned, thinking of it. The Hunchback knew. Up here in the tower of Notre Dame he saw how it was. Now and then, with the bells rattling his bones, he saw it like God saw it -- inside, outside, above and under -- just for a moment. The rest of the time he went back to hurting and waiting like Scully out there crying in the wind.”
― Tim Winton, The Riders

“She wondered if you could love someone too much. If you could it wasn't fair. People didn't have a chance. Love was all you had in the end. It was like sleep, like clean water. When you fell off the world there was still love because love made the world. That's what she believed. That's how it was.”
― Tim Winton, The Riders

“Everything imaginable had been done or tried out there. It wasn't the feeling you had looking out on his own land. In Australia, you looked out and saw the possible, the spaces, the maybes...”
― Tim Winton, The Riders

“She was like a sheet anchor sometimes, a steadying influence on him, on everyone around her. Made people laugh, that sensible streak in her, but it also made her someone of substance.”
― Tim Winton, The Riders

“...architecture was what you had instead of landscape, a signal of loss, of imitation. Europe had it in spades...”
― Tim Winton, The Riders

“She wants to be something creative,' he murmured.
'It's not something to want. It's something you have. It's a curse. One she doesn't have.”
― Tim Winton, The Riders

“There's things that have no finish, Scully, no ending to speak of. There's no justice to it, but that's the God's truth. The only end some things have is the end you give em.”
― Tim Winton, The Riders

“Wasted and wounded It ain’t what the moon did I got what I paid for now See you tomorrow Hey Frank can I borrow A couple of bucks from you To go Waltzing Matilda Waltzing Matilda You’ll go waltzing Matilda with me . . .”
― Tim Winton, The Riders

“She was still glad she looked like Scully. He wasn't pretty either, but pretty people weren't the kind you need. Pretty people saw themselves in the mirror and were either too happy or too sad. People like Billie just shrugged and didn't care. She didn't want to turn into anyone pretty. Anyway, she had scars now, you only had to look.”
― Tim Winton, The Riders

“And the sun on the wall of her room, the block of sun with all the tiny flying things in it. When she was little she thought they were the souls of dead insects, still buzzing in the light.”
― Tim Winton, The Riders

“Old Scully, who according to Jennifer, hadn't the imagination to think the worst. Something she said once, as though neurosis was an artform.”
― Tim Winton, The Riders

“The only end some things have is the end you give em.”
― Tim Winton, The Riders