Bryce Courtenay Quotations

I was born illegitimately and almost immediately, as I understand it, placed in an orphanage. So my very earliest memories were in an orphanage. It was the tag end of the Great Depression when I was born. People were desperately poor.

People say I don't write books, I make Christmas presents.

Advertising seemed almost natural to me because it was a business where you had to inform, persuade and educate. And so from being a junior copywriter to being the creative director of one of the largest advertising agencies in the country took me 4.5 years, which is, well, a fairly spectacular rise.

My job is essentially that of an entertainer, no different to that of a musician, no different to that of an actor. I just happen to be an author.

The only thing that's authentic about what a writer writes is his work.

If I were king of the world there wouldn't be boat people, there would only be people coming in boats. I would mix us all up so that we were all exactly one shade of each other.

The only thing I can say that is wonderful about my mother is she forced me to learn three verses of the Bible every day of my life, and I've read the Bible now five times and it taught me the English language.

I tell myself lies and soon I believe them.

I'm going to die with my mind intact. And to me that is the most exciting way you could possibly die.

I watch people get older and lose their intellectual acuity; you lose that sharpness, that cleanness, that brain that you worked so hard on and that you were gifted with and lose the gifts that were given.

I guess my use-by date is just about up but if I could come back as a storyteller now, I would be jumping over the moon because wow, just think what's available.

I am essentially an entertainer and a storyteller.

What's the point in being an unpopular writer? It just doesn't make a lot of sense. For me it doesn't, anyway.

Advertising was only meant to be a very small part of my life. I had intended that I would work extensively in journalism for about five or six years and then I'd become a writer.

My job, and that's my job, is to dress the naked truth. To make it interesting, to make it viable, to make it seem like something you understand and feel and love.

As is so often the case with a legend, every incident has two possible interpretations, the plausible and the one that is molded to suit the making of the myth. Man is a romantic at heart and will always put aside dull, plodding reason for the excitement of an enigma. As Doc had pointed out, mystery, not logic, is what gives us hope and keeps us believing in a force greater than our own insignificance.

Sometimes, very occasionally, you do your best boxing with your mouth.

Your brain, Peekay, has two functions; it is a place for original thought, but also it is a reference library. Use it to tell you where to look, and then you will have for yourself all the brains that have ever been

sometimes in life doing what we shouldn't do is the emergency

Good conversational debate is an end in itself, and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human.

Pride is holding your head up when everyone around you has theirs bowed. Courage is what makes you do it.

Words are like diamonds. Polish them too much, and all you get are pebbles.

Always listen to yourself. It is better to be wrong than to simply follow convention. If you are wrong, no matter, you have learned something and you will grow stronger. If you are right, you have taken another step toward a fulfilling life.

I wish to cup knowledge in my hand and drink it as one drinks water by the side of the stream.

You can't go feeding your hate on the past, it's not natural.

It's nothing to be ashamed of. There comes a time in everything when you don't know something.

I knew then that the person on the outside was only a shell, a presence to be seen and provoked. Inside was the real me, where my tears joined the tears of all the sad people to form the three waterfalls in the night country.

I have found in life that everything, no matter how bad, comes to an end.

Inside all people there is love, also the need to take care of the other man who is his brother. Inside everyone is a savage, but there is also happening tenderness and compassion.

. . . besides love, independence of thought is the greatest gift an adult can give a child.

Winning is a state of mind that embraces everything you do.

Never take advice from a donkey.

It is better just to get on with the business of living and minding your own business and maybe, if God likes the way you do things, he may just let you flower for a day or a night. But don't go pestering and begging and telling him all your stupid little sins, that way you will spoil his day.

Intelligence is a harder gift. For this you must work, you must practice it, challenge it, and maybe toward the end of your life you will master it. Cleverness is the shadow, whereas intelligence is the substance. -Doc

But I was still alive, and in my book, where there's life, there's hope.

Innocents, the meat in a ghastly sandwich between an uncaring society and a vengeful state.

The imagination is always the best torturer.

It's not what a man does, it's what a man is that counts!

Racism does not diminish with brains, it's a disease, a sickness, it may incubate in ignorance but it doesn't necessarily disappear with the gaining of wisdom!

One thing is certain in life. Just when things are going well, soon afterward they are certain to go wrong. It's just the way things are meant to be.

Small can beat big, but you must have a plan.

Each of us has been designed for one of two immortal functions, as either a storyteller or as a cross-legged listener to tales of wonder, love, and daring. When we cease to tell or listen, then we no longer exist as a people.

It's been a privilege to write for you and to have you accept me as a storyteller in your lives, Now, as my story draws to an end, may I say only, `Thank you. You have been simply wonderful'.

First with the head, then with the heart.

In this world are very few things made from logic alone. It is illogical for man to be too logical. Some things we must just let stand. The mystery is more important than any possible explanation. The searcher after truth must search with humanity. Ruthless logic is the sign of a limited mind. The truth can only add to the sum of what you know, while a harmless mystery left unexplored often adds to the meaning of life. When a truth is not so important, it is better left as a mystery.

what is a german? to say a man is a german, what is that? does it tell you if he is a good man? or a bad man? no, my friend, it tells you nothing about a man to say he is german. a man must think what he is inside. what he is on the outside, how can this matter?

You've got to be quick on your feet in this world if you want to survive. Though once you know the rules, it is not too hard to play the game.

Dare your genius to walk the wildest unknown ways.

When men can be made to hope, then they can be made to win.

I learned that in each of us there burns a flame of independence that must never be allowed to go out. That as long as it exists within us we cannot be destroyed.

The man assumes the role of the loner, the thinker and the searching spirit who calls the privileged and the powerful to task. The power of one was the courage to remain separate, th think through the truth and not be beguiled by convention or the plausible arguments of those who expect to maintain power, whatever the cost.

Always listen to yourself... It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention.

Love is energy: it can neither be created nor destroyed. It just is and always will be, giving meaning to life and direction to goodness... Love will never die.

If you don't know where you are going, then how will you get there? VISUALISE! Make pictures in your mind. See the desination. Imagine your arrival. Dream in perfect detail. See yourself the way you want to be when you arrive. See yourself arriving. Make yourself a road map and study it every day until you know the way and the destination by heart.

It's good to be a little frightened. It's good to respect your opponent. It keeps you sharp. In the fight game, the head rules the heart. But in the end the heart is the boss.

Let me conclude by saying in my experience the glittering prizes in life come more to those who persevere despite setback and disappointment than they do to the exceptionally gifted who, with the confidence of the talents bestowed upon them, often pursue the tasks leading to success with less determination.

. . . God is too busy making the sun come up and go down and watching so the moon floats just right in the sky to be concerned with color . . . only man wants always God should be there to condemn this one and save that one. Always it is man who wants to make heaven and hell. God is too busy training the bees to make honey and every morning opening up all the new flowers for business.

Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark.

The power of one is above all things the power to believe in yourself, ofen well beyond any latent ability you may have previously demonstrated. The mind is the athlete, the body is simply the means it uses to run faster or longer, jump higher, shoot straighter, kick better, swim harder, hit further, or box better.