Theme: Inheritance
“When the time comes – it’s no good carving it up.” (Nugget, p22)
“…this bloody farm has been a noose around her neck for sixty years.” (William, p32)
“You’ve got to be big to own country like this.” (Farley, p41)
“One of us takes on the farm and the other is free to go…Right?” (Girlie, p48)
“We have to make a decision about the farm. My children need to know where they stand.”
(Girlie, p52)
“I never wanted the farm. (Dibs, p57). Well, give it to someone who does. Allendale belongs
to Lyle. (Girlie).”
“We’re going to claim what’s ours.” (Maureen)
“We were eighteen. We tossed a coin. You won this farm on the toss of a coin…But that toss
is not binding on our kids. They have to be free of that. This farm stays in the family. It’s a
question of blood. Allendale belongs to Lyle.” (Girlie, p56-7)
“Nugget tole me…‘I don’t need to own it, mate. That’s the difference between us blackfellas
and your mob.’ But the truth is…if you don’t own it…they’ll shaft you.” (Felix, p91)
Theme: Financial Hardship
“There’s people in this town can’t afford a raffle ticket.” (Girlie, p15)
“I’m putting in a sixty-hour week – for what? We’re going down the toilet.” (Maureen, p25)
“Put [the pigeons] in a sack and drown them in the river. We can’t afford to keep pigeons.”
(Maureen, p25)
“Poor Dad. It was all too hard, trying to scratch a living…he was doing every dead-end job he
could get.” (Dibs, p26)
“Maybe he put in the hard work and didn’t get the rewards.” (Brianna, p30)
“Even a baby knows you don’t borrow money when you’re up to your eyeballs in debt.”
(Ashleigh, p82)
Theme: Rural/Urban divide
“And like this is where it’s really happening.” (Felix, p12)
“How are you, mate? Still a real asphalt fella. Eh?” (Nugget, p20)
“Fokaishas. See! We’re up with it.” (Dibs, p26)
“The Rushton A&P…was the only exciting thing that ever happened in this shit-heap.”
(William, p23)
“It’s bad luck, that place [Melbourne].” (Girlie, p29)
“They’re thieves down there – the builders and that. They’ll see you coming a mile off.”
(Girlie, p54)
“We live in a ghetto…We all think the same, but out there – they hate blacks, they hate
wogs, they hate brown people.” (Felix, p83)
“Because you’re from the city, you think you know everything. It’s a big joke out this way.”
(Maureen, p85)
“I love being down in Melbourne…It’s everything I’ve always dreamed of.” (Dibs, p48)
“You deserve – your kids deserve – the same basic facilities as city people take for granted.”
Maureen
“You’re so politically correct, you wouldn’t know your arse from your armpit.” (Maureen to
Felix)
“You don’t like it up here, so you don’t understand.” (Brianna, p91)
“No dust storms. No mouse shit. No possums pissing in the roof.” (William, p17)
“It’s bloody feudal. We’re living like peasants.” (Maureen, p25)
Theme: Relationship with the land/belonging
“Mate, the land belongs to the people who work it. Not the banks. Not the multinationals.
And certainly not a pampered city boy who turned tail because he couldn’t hack it.”
(Maureen, p91)
“This is Nugget’s country. His people have already been dispossessed once. He has a
spiritual attachment to this place.” (Felix, p91)
“Dad could tell you every tree, every hill. Every creek. We belong here too.” (Brianna, p91)
“This is my country. This should be my farm. But they’ve pulled the fucking rug out from
under me…Because you wouldn’t say I had a right to it. Because you wouldn’t tell them the
truth.” (Nugget, p87-8)
“A man has to live or die by his own piece of dirt.” (Lyle, p89)
Theme: Family Conflict
“See Lyle and me, we don’t see eye-to-eye on this.” (Nugget, p21)
“Nobody’s forcing you to stick around.” (Lyle to Maureen, p25)
“This is not fair, Dibs – what you’re doing.” (Girlie, p51)
“You didn’t bother to say anything to us. Your own family.” (Girlie, p52)
“This is a matter for family, I’m afraid.” (Girlie, p55)
“Our mother did what you [Dibs] told her…she signed over everything.” (Girlie, p57)
“Get in the car. And don’t come back.” (Maureen, p92)
“I work hard for the money I earn. Those people [the Delaneys] are parasites.” (William,
p81)
“I wrote you people a check for six thousand dollars – to run our sheep on land that should
be ours.” (Maureen, p31)
“I’m the one keeping this family together. I’m the one who treks out to Swan Hill every
bloody day to work in that shop.” (Maureen, p24)
“What a useless idiot. I’m married to a hopeless piece of trash.” (Maureen, p73)
“I don’t really like him [William] that much.” (Dibs, p90)
Theme: Fairness/Fate
“That’s the hardest lesson in life… Accepting how the coin falls and making the most of it.”
(Norm, p33)
“Whoever said life was fair? Life is not fair.” (Norm, p34)
“Duty or freedom.” (Young Dibs, p48)
“He just needs a little help from lady luck. For once in his life.” (Girlie, p93)
“You can’t wait for things to come to you, you know. You’ve got to make things happen.”
(Lyle, p12)
“We all got trapped into doing things we didn’t want to do.” (Girlie, 63)
Theme: Intolerance/Prejudice
“They’re thieves, those Greeks!” (Girlie, p15)
“White teacher living with a blackfella. Even the kids in her class were having a go at her.”
(Nugget, p20)
“Bloody boong. Never had to stand on your own two feet, you black bastard.” (Lyle, p44)
“I’m talking about every Asian, Moslem and Hottentot who come here and refuse to sign up
to the Australian Way of Life.” (Maureen, p61)
“Then why didn’t you choose a proper man?” (Dibs to Julia, p70)
“That’s just racist. Yous are so racist.” (Brianna, p38)
“Listen, there’s nothing racist about my policies. Aboriginals are just the same as what we
are….It’s just the extra privileges they get which make people around here mad.” (Maureen,
p84)
“Nugget’s a great bloke and that, but they make hopeless bloody farmers.” (Lyle, p45)
“Gay men are not welcome in Rushton.” (William, p10)
“Well, nobody needs to know. He doesn’t have to advertise the fact.” (Dibs about William,
p10)
“I thought he [Felix] was a homo.” (Maureen, p15)
“Obviously there are people in this world who can’t overcome their own…weakness.”
(Farley to William, p23)
“It’s the Presbyterian in her [Dibs]. Stingy.” (Girlie, p15)
“My sister is a very Christian woman…but when it comes down to it – she’s as mean as all
get-out. It’s the Presbyterian in her.” (Girlie, p15)
“Never put a Mick in charge of anything.” (Farley, p43)
“You can tell a Catholic by his eyes.” (Norm, p48)
“She’s a Christian. They do all sorts of weird shit.” (Felix, p67)