Jane Harper > Quotes

“Death rarely changes how we feel about someone. Heightens it, more often than not.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“Someone can decide it’s in their best interests to agree to something, but a choice is only really a choice if there’s a genuine alternative. Otherwise it’s manipulation and it’s taking advantage.”
― Jane Harper, The Lost Man

“To look out and see not another soul between you and the horizon could be a strange and disturbing sight.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“Nothing like old-fashioned misogyny to make the ignorant turn down good advice.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“No-one tells you this is how it’s going to be, do they? Oh yes, they’re all so sorry for your loss, all so keen to pop round and get the gossip when it happens, but no-one mentions having to go through your dead son’s drawers and return their library books, do they? No-one tells you how to cope with that.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“Life out here is hard. We all try to get through the best way we can. But trust me, there's not a single person here who isn't lying to themselves about something.”
― Jane Harper, The Lost Man

“His own naivety taunted him like a flicker of madness.”
― Jane Harper

“The rumors were fed well...and grew fat and solid. They sprouted legs and heads, and they never died.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“He passed a takeaway that seemed to offer cuisine from any corner of the world as long as it was fried or could be displayed in a pie warmer.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“He avoided small talk at the best of times and this, unquestionably, was a million horrific miles from the best of times.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“Sometimes things turn out for the best. And when you end up in the right place, it's not always helpful to go digging up the road that got you there.”
― Jane Harper, The Lost Man

“It’s the panic that gets you. Makes it hard to trust what you’re seeing.”
― Jane Harper, Force of Nature

“They lived in a land of extremes in more ways than one. People were either completely fine, or very not.”
― Jane Harper, The Lost Man

“She was smiling in every photo, looked truly happy in none.”
― Jane Harper, Force of Nature

“It was too late for that now. Some things had to be lived with.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“It was funny how high and bright the red flags flew in hindsight,”
― Jane Harper, The Lost Man

“It wasn’t as though the farm hadn’t seen death before, and the blowflies didn’t discriminate. To them there was little difference between a carcass and a corpse. The”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“Fire would barrel along that chain like a bullet train, he knew. It surged and jumped and gorged itself. It raced like an animal. It ravaged with inhuman efficiency.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“The the street was quiet again. Country quiet.

That's partly what took city natives like the Whitlams by surprise, Falk thought: the quiet. He could understand them seeking out the idyllic country lifestyle, a lot of people did. The idea had an enticing, wholesome glow when it was weighed out from the back of a traffic jam, or while crammed into a gardenless apartment. They all had the same visions of breathing fresh clean air and knowing their neighbors. The kids would eat home-grown veggies and learn the value of an honest day's work.

On arrival, as the empty moving truck disappeared form sight, they looked around and were always taken aback by the crushing vastness of the open land. The space was the thing that hit them first. There was so much of it. There was enough to drown in. To look out and see not another soul between you and the horizon could be a strange and disturbing sight.

Soon, they discovered that the veggies didn't grow as willingly as they had in the city window box. That every single green shoot had to be coaxed and prized from the reluctant soil, and the neighbors were too busy doing the same on an industrial scale to muster much cheer in their greetings. There was no daily bumper-to-bumper commute, but there was also nowhere much to drive to.

Falk didn't blame the Whitlams, he'd seen it many times before when he was a kid. The arrivals looked around at the barrenness and the scale and the sheer bloody hardness of the land, and before long their faces all said exactly the same thing. "I didn't know it was like this."

He turned away, remembering how the rawness of local life had seeped into the kids' paintings at the school. Sad faces and brown landscapes.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“Dirty mugs crowded a side table, the recycling bin was overflowing, and stacks of letters stood unopened. It all told a tale of grief and distraction.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“Outside, washing hung still on the rotary line, bone dry and stiff from the sun. A child's scooter lay abandoned on the stepping-stone path. Just one human heart beat within a kilometer radius of the farm. So nothing reacted when, deep inside the house, the baby started crying.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“Above the three coffins, a family of four stared down from a blown-up photograph. Their static smiles were overlarge and pixelated. Falk recognised the picture from the news. It had been used a lot. Beneath, the names of the dead were spelled out in native flowers. Luke. Karen. Billy.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“Show her a mother of school-age children who didn’t sigh on a daily basis, and she’d show you a woman with a nanny.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“He stood on shaky legs, his vision blurred, as all around the cockatoos whirled and screamed into the scorching red sky. Alone, in that monstrous wound, Falk put his face in his hands and, just once, screamed himself.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“How short was the road from that decision to this moment? The question ached like a bruise.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“Are they supposed to be happy or sad? I mean, is it a celebration of the people who made it, or a memorial to the ones who didn't?”
― Jane Harper, The Survivors

“His edges had been gently rounded by nuanced debate and foreign coffee and morning news.”
― Jane Harper, The Lost Man

“The rabbit quivered a little under their scrutiny but mainly lay still. Fear masquerading as acceptance.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“Bloody tragic.’ The farmer at Falk’s side spoke out of nowhere. His arms were crossed, fists wedged tightly under his armpits. ‘It is,’ Falk said. ‘You knew ’em well?’ ‘Not really. Only Luke, the –’ For a dizzy moment Falk couldn’t think of a word to describe the man in the largest coffin.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“Those in great pain cause others great pain.”
― Jane Harper, The Lost Man