''All that any of us aspire to do is to achieve a transparency between our soul and our words but that is the hardest thing to do, but when you achieve it and walk naked, you will have done your job. I grew up surrounded by rainforest in Tasmania, in this place that was unlike any other in the world. A place of such extraordinary beauty and wildness and I used to wander off into those places, and I got a very strong sense early on at the wonder of all the things that are not manmade and I realised they just weren’t just beautiful places but sacred places. When we destroy that land we destroy something fundamental in our own humanity and there is a great risk to us all if we are so foolish as to go down that path. Both my father and mother had a great love of words. My father can recite great long pieces of Shakespeare, Keats, Milton, Coleridge. Maybe I’m the merge of these two things, the love of the earth and someone who senses the power and strange magic of words.''

- Richard Flanagan, screenwriter of movie 'Australia'