“John Howard, willing to apologise to home owners for rising interest rates, would not say sorry to Aborigines. He refused to condone what he referred to as 'a black armband version' of histo...”

“I wrote. Something. Yes. And you were truthful. No. You weren't truthful? I was accurate.”

“I went to study at Oxford University in the 1980s on an imperial scholarship instituted by Cecil Rhodes.”

“There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything.”

“A good book, he had concluded, leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own soul. Such books were for him rare and, as he aged, rarer. Still he searched...”