The Sound of One Hand Clapping Quotes

“Because in the end history—like the Berlin Wall—shapes people, had shaped her, but would not in the end determine her, because in the end it cannot account for the great irrational—the great human—forces: the destructive power of evil, the redeeming power of love.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Sound Of One Hand Clapping

“Because not to fear was to imagine a world beyond experience. And that was too much for anybody.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Sound Of One Hand Clapping

“Bojan’s friendships now, such as they were, were with strangers who without being told, knew the horror of each other’s story, who demanded no explanations, and gave no justification for their own bad behaviour. They never told these stories, perhaps because they knew there was nothing remarkable about any of them, because they knew they were shared by millions upon millions of people, because all that they had seen had taught them this one terrible truth that no-one should have to bear: that people are horrific and evil beyond imagining. There was worse. There were horrors Bojan kept within him without even a story to enclose them, that he kept shapeless in the hope of dissolving them.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Sound of One Hand Clapping

“In the Tullah pub the fires blazed and the rain fell with a passion and neither spoke for some time, both lost in their thoughts and in their embarrassment at knowing each other so well and having everything to tell and nothing to say.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Sound of One Hand Clapping

“Sonja Buloh drove through them and into the sheep country, in which occasional ancient gum trees stood as if brooding survivors of some terrible massacre, sharing their melancholia only with the rainbow-coloured rosella parrots that briefly called in upon the trees before flitting off elsewhere, as though unable to bear the tales told them by those aching branches.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Sound of One Hand Clapping

“Maria Buloh turned away. She recommenced walking out of the town. From the canteen she could hear the faint, ever fainter strains of a new American country-and-western song being played on the gramophone. The song seemed to simmer tears, like a goulash stewed out of sadness.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Sound of One Hand Clapping

“[...] intampina cu un zambet aproape tot ce spuneau ceilalti, in parte fiindca, in tinerete, descoperise ca asta ii usura drumul in viata, in parte fiindca era o masca, iar el gasea o mare placere in a-i insela pe ceilalti, castigandu-le increderea, convingandu-i ca n-au de ce sa se teama de el. Ca si tiganii, folosea mai multe masti: a vorbirii, a comportamentului, a personalitatii. Pentru ca, pe dedesubt, sa ramana el insusi.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Sound of One Hand Clapping

“[...], Sonja se uita la imaginea in oglinda a caminului nefamilistilor in care se afla: tot o baraca, lunga, la un singur nivel, cu peretii subtiri, din tabla ondulata, cu usi de-o parte si de- alta, cu o veranda cu rufe intinse afara, pe o funie din nailon, prinsa din stalp in stalp, flanele de corp uzate, pantaloni din dril kaki, decolorati, ca gresia roasa de timp, si tricouri cu mesajele unei lumi in care nu era loc pentru cei care le purtau, schimb dupa schimb, saptamana de saptamana, luna de luna, an de an.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Sound of One Hand Clapping

“Trecutul nu este soarta ta, singura iti faci viata, ca atunci cand conduci masina, fie incet, neriscand nimic, necastigand nimic, fie repede, cand tot ceea ce conteaza e ce ai in fata, in clipa asta, iar tot ce e in spate nu mai are relevanta.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Sound of One Hand Clapping

“auger-eyed woman’s small stout form, outlining her”
― Richard Flanagan, The Sound of One Hand Clapping: A heartbreaking novel about war and migration by the bestselling Booker Prize-winning author