Luke

“When white men find this land, Indians were running it. No taxes, no debt, plenty buffalo, plenty beaver, clean water, women did all the work, medicine man free. Indian man spend all day hunting and fishing, all night having sex.’ “Then the chief leaned back and smiled. He said: ‘Only white man dumb enough to think he could improve a system like that.”
― Don Mann, SEAL Team Six Book 1: Hunt the Wolf

“Because ibis don’t eat silverside and pickles sandwiches,’ Dad says. ‘You’re only giving it the sandwich chunks because you want to feel good about yourself. That’s a selfish mindset. You start feeding that bird from this window every day then it’ll start dropping by every afternoon like we’re fuckin’ Big Rooster and it brings its friends and then none of those birds get the strength and exercise they usually get from finding food the hard way so you drastically alter their metabolisms, not to mention cause widespread civil war among the Bracken Ridge ibis community as they battle to be the first to chomp into your silverside and pickles treat. Moreover, you suddenly get an unnaturally high level of birds in one place, which affects the ecological balance of the whole Bracken Ridge area. I know I don’t always practise this but, basically, you know, the whole point of life is doing things that are right over things that are easy. Because you want to feel good about yourself, suddenly the ibis are spending less time in the wetlands on a tree and more time on the ground in a fuckin’ car park rubbing shoulders with the pigeons, and then we start getting inter-species contact and weaker immune systems in the birds and higher stress hormones and from that little petri dish of dynamite springs salmonella”
― Trent Dalton, Boy Swallows Universe

“Every day of your life has been leading up to tomorrow. But of course every day of your life led up to today.”
― Trent Dalton, Boy Swallows Universe

“You can accomplish amazing feats of bravery and travel to the farthest reaches of the earth, but you can’t escape yourself.”
― Don Mann, SEAL Team Six Book 1: Hunt the Wolf